Monday's announcement comes as the city's Irish community has been fighting for months for the light-rail system's Griffintown station to be called Griffintown only, in tribute to the area's historic Irish roots.

Margaret Healy was born in Pointe-Saint-Charles on July 30, 1931. She was 88.

The REM has said it is open to the city's proposal but will establish a committee to organize the naming of stations.

In Montreal, about 6,000 Irish refugees died from typhus in 1847.

For over a decade, Montreal's Irish community has lobbied authorities for a commemorative park near the Black Rock site, where thousands of typhus victims are buried.

"We are at the very beginning of planning," officials said, "but it is exciting that we have reached this point."

Some Parti Québécois and Liberal signs caught the attention of Montreal's Irish community.

McGee remains to this day, the only federally elected official in Canadian history to have been assassinated.

Kathleen Brown-Vandecruys will be the next queen of the Montreal St. Patrick's Day parade.

A group of Irish Montrealers want the burial site of 6,000 Irish immigrants to be converted into a park.