Slack Family Cottage
There were four walls made of stone, a fireplace, and a wide opening in the shape of a door. When I first entered, I was unable to distinguish this configuration of various stones as a one-bedroom cottage. Perhaps I couldn’t imagine this exceedingly small space to even be livable. And again, to my surprise, I soon learned this was not merely a replica of an Irish cottage, but an authentic Irish cottage from Attymass, County Mayo of the 19th century. Standing alone in this home, I couldn’t help but begin to move beyond the factual rhetoric that lined the walls, and began to ponder the personal lives of those effected by the famine.
Sculptures of the Irish people didn’t exist in this memorial. Instead, it was the absence of physical, memorialized bodies that captured my attention. An empty home is a haunting place. I was faced with the questions of: Who was it that once lived here? Was it a family with young children? Were they forced to flee from their home? Did their bodies slowly deteriorate here? These were the heavy thoughts that burdened my mind. But they arose naturally. I didn’t feel obligated to read a plaque in front of bronze, starved bodies. Instead, I felt deeply connected to this family’s presence, as it hung in the air of this space. Despite knowing this memorial was constructed with a purpose, this element felt so effortless to experience.
There was a family to whom this cottage belonged: The Slack family. The cottage was deserted in the 1960’s, and the family donated the cottage in memory of “All the Slack family members of previous generations who emigrated to America and fared well there.” Woven into this dedication is the concept collective memory, how generations pass down certain narratives and values. However, the Slack’s family choice to memorialize their family home calls on the concept of public memory. Visitors who are not descendants of this bloodline now have the opportunity to interact with this personal artifact. Public memory allows a nation to elect a piece of history to be highlighted through a monument. The Slack family cottage placed within a designed interactive memorial allows an interesting blend of this collective and public memory.