Read Coffin Ship for Free Online

M., ‘The Winter Voyages of the Famine Ships Cushlamachree and Londonderry ’.
    Litton, Helen, The Irish Famine: An Illustrated History (1994), pp. 105, 107.
    Ã“ Cathaoir, Brendan, Famine Diary (1999), pp. 123, 131, 149.
    [ 6 ] Boston Irish Reporter : ‘Cohasset Monument Honors Famine Victims’ (October 1996).
    Boston Sunday Herald : ‘Cohasset Ceremony Recalls Shipwreck’ (10-10-1999).
    Cunningham, John, ‘ A Town Tormented by the Sea’: Galway 1790-1914 (2004), pp. 155, 156.
    The Galway Mercury : ‘Irish Sufferings – Whig and Tory Sympathy’ (5-6-1847).

IV– A Gruelling Walk
    Most of the people intending to sail away from Galway on the brig St. John in 1849 would have had to walk to the port. The majority of them would have had no previous experience of a sea voyage, but the St. John was now their only hope of salvation. During the journey from County Clare and Connemara, these people experienced the full devastation of famine and disease. Epidemics of typhus and relapsing fever raged and were carried along by those fleeing stricken areas. Many deaths were caused by outbreaks of dysentery, diarrhoea, measles and tuberculosis, as malnutrition had weakened the immune systems of the starving. The stench of blight and death clung to the clothes of these wretched people. The land of their birth, and that of their forefathers, had now forsaken them, allowing death to reap a rich harvest of corpses across the country. There was no age limit; young and old perished together. Their back-breaking toil had been in vain, their only hope of salvation was relief work, the workhouse or the coffin ships. Whole families – grandparents, fathers, mothers and children – trudged along the old dirt roads towards the harbour towns. Scourged by hunger, bare-footed and dressed in rags, they wondered why this dreaded curse had been inflicted upon them, many tilting their heads towards the sky and calling out to heaven for answers. [1]

    Humane Society Medal awarded after the sinking of the
Ocean Monarch off Liverpool.
(The Illustrated London News, 28-10-1848)
    The scale of exodus was enormous, with thousands making this same journey throughout Ireland. Hun-dreds died along the way, and were left lying in ditches along the side of the road, their grass-stained mouths bearing testament to their desperation. One particular case was that of Pat and Bridget Duffy, a brother and sister who lived near Spiddal in County Galway. The only food they could find during the days leading up to their deaths, if one could call it food, was ‘sea grass and sea weed’.
    There was little hope of finding sustenance during the exhausting walk to the ports, so those fleeing carried their own meagre supplies with them. Any possessions of value had already been exchanged for food, or sold off for the price of a ticket to America or Canada. Some portable possessions were taken and used to barter along the way. In towns and villages the inhabitants shunned them out of fear of disease, so terrified were they by horrific sights they had witnessed. Compassion for the poor and destitute was tenuous; people were so terrified of contracting disease that, having refused a beggar assistance, they would label them false and better off than they claimed just to assuage their own consciences.

    Spailpín of Tim Downs at Dunmore in County Clare.
(The Illustrated London News, 22-12-1849)
    While Galway was by no means the worst hit area during the famine, it did suffer its share of disease, starvation and death. It was once said of Rahoon that no language could express the ghastly suffering of the poor and destitute of this district during the famine. It was reported that, ‘On every side nothing but cries of death and starvation are heard. The poor are literally dropping on the public highways from hunger.’ Similar unforgettable scenes of human misery were also witnessed in the surrounding areas. There were