The film “Graceville: The Story of the ‘Connemaras’ & Bishop Ireland in Minnesota,” researched and narrated by Seosamh Ó Cuaig, and written by Bob Quinn, will be shown at 6:15 p.m. March 21 at St. John Lutheran Church, 765 Margaret St., St. Paul.

This is the story of a group of Irish from Connemara who were offered the opportunity to come to the US in 1879 to escape the famine in Ireland.

“They left Ireland to escape starvation during the 1879 famine and arrived in Minnesota in June 1880,” the sign states. “Bishop John Ireland of the Diocese of St. Paul and English philanthropist Fr. James Nugent sponsored their emigration. The immigrants first farmed land near Graceville. Their late arrival and lack of prairie farming experience and the severe winter of 1880-1881 forced most to leave their farms and relocate along Phalen Creek in St. Paul in the spring of 1881. … By 1885, newspapers dubbed the area ‘Connemara Patch.’”