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New facts about Great Famine emigration out of Ireland revealed

Between 1845 and 1855, more than 80,000 Irish died on coffin ships bound for America

By
BRENDAN DALY,
IrishCentral Contributing Writer
Published Saturday, February 18, 2012, 7:22 AM
Updated Saturday, February 18, 2012, 8:34 AM

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Emigrants at the quayside in Cork, 1851, surrounded by their baggage
Emigrants at the quayside in Cork, 1851, surrounded by their baggage


“The Famine emigrations represent one of the greatest population displacements of modern times, an exodus on a stunning scale that has no other nineteenth century parallel,” writes Dr Ciarán Ó Murchadha in his latest book, The Great Famine: Ireland’s Agony 1845 – 52, which was recently shortlisted for the prestigious Longman – History Today ‘Book of the Year’ international award.

“Between 1845 and 1855, approximately one-quarter of the inhabitants of an entire European nation, amounting to some 2.1 million persons, were permanently removed from their homeland.”

Over 95% of those who left Ireland during the Famine travelled across the Atlantic and about 70% of all emigrants who arrived in the United States settled – typically in cities of over 100,000 – in seven northerly states: New York, Connecticut, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Illinois and Massachusetts.

The total numbers who died during passage is unknown, but Dr Ó Murchadha, who teaches history and Irish at St. Flannan’s College, Ennis in County Clare, estimates that it may have been more than 80,000. Fever – due both to the condition of those who embarked and the filthy conditions aboard – was the primary cause of death.

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The Great Famine includes a vivid description of life on these ‘coffin ships’ written by Stephen de Vere, son of a County Limerick landlord, who travelled steerage to Quebec in 1847. Passengers were “huddled together without light, without air, wallowing in filth and breathing a fetid atmosphere”. They were “sick in body, dispirited in heart…living without food…dying without the voice of spiritual consolation, and buried in the deep without the rites of the Church.”

However, surviving the voyage was not the end of the hardship for Famine emigrants. In fact, for most, it was just the beginning of a new chapter of desolation.

“A great number of these emigrants had never previously ventured outside their own local areas,” says Dr Ó Murchadha. “Suddenly, they found themselves transported thousands of miles away: from a rural to an urban landscape, to a very alien social environment where the inhabitants didn’t speak the same language and, frequently, showed a deep loathing for their Irishness and their Catholicism. This was bewildering and devastating to them.”

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32 Comments

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Seanmor | Mar 28, 2012, 11:33 AM EDT
Records in the New York Public Library at 42nd Street and 5th Avenue, consisting of 5,800 pages, indicate that the vast majority of the Famine emigrants traveled to the U.S. from ports in G.B, especially Liverpool, and only about 14% came directly from Ireland. The records for 1948 show the number of ships from the following Irish cities: Dublin 29, Belfast 27, Cork 24, Galway, 15, Limerick 12. Speaking of "coffin ships", it is interesting to note that during the height of the Famine, there was a government official in Limerick whose surname was COFFIN and his function was to supervise the distribution of food to the distressed. On 23 August, 1851, the Victoria arrived in New York, having lost 5 children who died en route. Some children were also born on Famine ships from Limerick, The Betel docked on 4 Sept, 1849, with 2 babies born at sea. Any discussion on the Famine should mention that huge quantities of grain and livestock were exported from Ireland while over a mission died of starvation.

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joycean | Feb 21, 2012, 09:59 AM EST
Considering that we have 24 hour travel channels, I don't understand why anyone would have incorrect views of what Ireland looks like. I just watched a recently filmed show on Kilorglin's Puck Festival and Dingle.the only misconception I've noticed is that Americans tend to assume the Irish like them. I think the dichotmy of living history museum and modern country is patently false. I live in Virginia with the most elaborate living history museum, Colonial Williamsburg, but also plenty of high tech, research and development, heavy and light industry.

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AMWilson | Feb 20, 2012, 12:31 PM EST
PolinDeB, I've heard and read plenty of comments expressing the notion that emigrants "took the easy way out" or somehow forsook and foreited their right to a cultural heritage, and this argument has been used as a means of demeaning their descendants. But anyway, good post. I understand and appreciate your explanation.

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Portia777 | Feb 20, 2012, 11:21 AM EST
There was no food shortage. It was GENOCIDE. To get rid of our culture, as was done to Native Americans. People might also be surprised when they learn the hidden hand ordering the British to carry out the genocide. The same hand behind Hitler and Nazi Germany. The last thing these souls needed was a man of god trying to console them- telling them "it is good to suffer" and be sacrificed.

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Springfield9 | Feb 20, 2012, 09:42 AM EST
Nial - There's an unmarked mass grave of famine Irish on Staten Island .......why don't you find it and put up a cross. They were quarantined for disease and never allowed into the country proper.

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sirpeter | Feb 20, 2012, 09:11 AM EST
Seano.You're spot on with those two words.It was "Social Engineering" It was years of manipulation by the British of the Irish nation forcing them to the edge of a cliff.Not quite pushing the people over but waiting for a strong wind to come to do the job for them.

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IrelandNorth | Feb 20, 2012, 07:59 AM EST
"... dying without the voice of spiritual consolation, and buried in the deep without the rites of the Church." Rites of the Church (sic) which pacified their spirits and set them up for centuries of colonisation by the English-British. Some consolation. Would've preferred a crust o' bread m[e]self. Laissez-faire/free-for-all capitalism of British imperialism was responsible for exacerbating "black '47". Economics predominated over agriculature. But above them all was religious orthodoxy. And white European settlers, (some Irish?) deliberately extincted the stable buffalo diet of the Native American, to genocide them. But EIIR did chip-in STG£53m last Spring, perhaps to raise Vic. Reg.'s STG£2k.

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PolinDeB | Feb 20, 2012, 01:08 AM EST
@AMWilson I think this is incorrect. There is a feeling that some American Irish want us to remain as one mentioned an all-Ireland heritage park ;0 What most Irish people want is a modern country that retains respect and care for it's natural, archaeological and built heritage. Of course, Irish don't blame the English for their governments actions, this would be as bad as blaming Irish people for their governments actions over the last ten years. People sadly are gullible and want to believe their governments myths. English people are confronted by their incorrect view of Ireland when they come over, and it comes as much as a shock to them as it does to many Americans who often feel a real sense of loss that the Ireland of their imagination doesn't exist. This is as annoying to Irish as to Americans who confront people believing the in TV version of their country. There is no survivor guilt, a little jealousy perhaps but I think reviled is a rather incorrect allegation.

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dukmarshal@aol.com | Feb 20, 2012, 12:59 AM EST
@awoken32--It was not the royals that slowed the relief process, It was the House of Lords that vetoed or reduced the measures passed by the House of Commons.

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PolinDeB | Feb 20, 2012, 12:31 AM EST
The fact that the Irish gathered at Tara with such 'determination and dignity' as reported by the London Examiner in 1943 asking for Repeal of the Act of Union and this was greeted by a call in the same newspaper that their 'requests should be considered'. Suddenly the people of Ireland were a threat to the very basis of the British Empire. Suddenly a very convenient famine, did what would have caused outrage if it had been done by it's soldiers. As threatened if they marched again. There was a very simple way to stop the potatoes, once picked, rotting in the pits by letting some air in. Despite calls and efforts by a Protestant Minister, the government would not help him to spread this information. Russell failed to cap the prices of essentials and thus save lives, saying he could not interfere with the 'Market economy'. Does anyone believe it wasn't deliberate policy of just letting people die?

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seanomelb | Feb 19, 2012, 04:28 PM EST
Social engineering by starvation.

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merefalow | Feb 19, 2012, 03:31 PM EST
AMAZING, amazing that there should be ignorance in our people and education system about this tragic period in our history.the facts should be taught and the reasons for it properly understood,was it a famine or was it genocide,i believe it was genocide because the people in charge well knew the extent of what was happening,there was no shortage of food in Ireland,WHEN THERE IS A FAMINE ITS CAUSED BY A SHORTAGE OF FOOD,THERE WAS NO F,,,,,,,,, SHORTAGE ,therefore by definition it has to be something else,it suited the governing class and their planter mentality to decimate the population.they also did it with considerable success in the concentration camps in Boer south Africa, that's another little bit of history people should be aware of.the wonder is we ever survived and emerged as an independent country,albeit divided, don't think that was part of the plan,as for aid from uk,it was abysmal,derisory,other wise 2.5million people would not have perished in such horrendous destitution.teach it.

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AMWilson | Feb 19, 2012, 03:14 PM EST
Then there was the shutting down of the importation of Indian Corn which, God forbid, drove down the price of domestic grains and thereby "robbed" the grain merchants of their "just profits". The problem was not a lack of food (famine); it was that no one could afford food on the free market. That is, I believe, the natural consequence of unrestrained capitalism: it's an entirely darwinian model.

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WarriorPoet | Feb 19, 2012, 02:28 PM EST
The 8 million was in loans primarily the Queen gave roughly 2,000 pounds and refused to allow the Sultan of Turkey to upstage her by sending more. You see it was a deliberate attempt to destroy the Irish people. Thus comparing them to Nazis, or at least to American treatment of Natives and Africans is apropos.

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sirpeter | Feb 19, 2012, 02:10 PM EST
irishdjkevin.Because if they didn't call it a famine.The only other word you could use was mass murder by starvation.It was the British media called it a famine.Genocide is a new word.By definition a famine is known by the general scarcity of food.In Ireland there was no scarcity of food.Just a failure of the potato.The only crop that the Irish were allowed to eat.Wheat,Barley,Oats,Cattle,Pigs,Sheep,Butter ect were exported at the point of a gun to England.The blight was a potato fungus not a famine (Phytophthora infestans)

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