In May of 2016, my husband and I, along with my sister, took a trip to Europe and visited several countries. The first country on our trip was Ireland, the homeland for many of our relatives.
The first stop for us was the spot where St. Patrick actually established a church, the spot most tourists visit. It was a rainy day and after taking our pictures and visiting the gift shop we got in our rental car and headed across the highway to an interesting metal structure which was actually a replica of the type of ship many immigrants crossed the Atlantic on to escape the devastating potato famine that had hit Ireland. We only wish we knew more details about their journey to America between 1847 and about 1860.
My great, great grandfather John O’Malley came to America in 1847 and Jim’s great, great grandfather Michael Fleming about 1852 so it was during that time frame and later that many immigrants came on what became known as “Coffin Ships.”
I hadn’t heard that term until that day in Ireland. Some ship owners were good and gave passengers relatively safe travel. (We think our ancestors were on that kind of ship because horror stories at sea were not passed down.) Others were greedy and did not care about people, only the money they might make and so they filled their ships with three or four times more passengers than the ship was built to accommodate. It was a six week journey and hunger, followed by starvation and disease caused hundreds of passengers to die enroute to the new land where they were hoping for a better life.
I bought a small book “1847 Famine Ship Diary” by Rob Whyte who kept a daily diary with an account of what happened each day on his own six week voyage. I can tell you it is difficult to read as he tells of the extreme sickness and weakness of so many. He relates the agony, crying, screaming and extreme torture from illness that so many suffered, only to succumb in the end. Typhus was prevalent among the poor and spread like wildfire among those on the over crowded ships. Hundreds were buried at sea.
Desperate to escape the famine and starvation, many boarded ships that sailed not just in the spring or summer but in the cold, icy waters of winter. Sometimes entire ships sank. To me it was beyond horrible. Ships were loaded with human cargo carrying 900-1,000 when the ship was only built for 300. Some weren’t even seaworthy.
It is easy to understand why so many ships became known as “Coffin Ships”.
