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A group of Irish Montrealers gathered at the Black Rock monument on Sunday to observe a moment of silence for the souls of those whose remains were unearthed by archeologists near the Victoria Bridge last month.

Archeologists found bone and wood fragments believed to be from coffins stacked and buried at the spot more than 170 years ago. Thousands of Irish immigrants fled the famine in their homeland in 1847 and 1848 and headed for Canada, only to die from typhus on ships or in fever shacks on Montreal’s shores.

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The Black Rock monument was erected in 1859 by workers building the Victoria Bridge to mark the area where 6,000 Irish immigrants are believed to be buried. The rock now stands on a median in the middle of Bridge St., in an industrial area of Montreal’s Sud-Ouest borough. Members of Montreal’s Irish community have been lobbying for more than a decade to get the city of Montreal to establish a more respectful commemorative site.