Latest / The History of Ireland: Rebellion, Empire, and Independence — Fexingo History / The Famine Ships: Crossing the Atlantic During An Gorta Mór
Transcript
- Lucas: We've talked a lot about the Famine itself — An Gorta Mór — the potato blight, the evictions, the soup kitchens. But there's one part of that story that often gets compressed into a single horrific image: the ships. Luna: The coffin ships. Lucas: Exactly. That phrase is so vivid and so dark. Between 1845 and 1855, roughly two million people left Ireland. Most of them crossed the Atlantic in vessels that were never designed for passengers — cargo ships, timber ships, even old slave ships refitted. And the mortality rate on some of those voyages was staggering. Luna: I've heard numbers like one in five died on the crossing. Is that accurate? Lucas: It depends on the year and the port. At the worst point — 1847, the worst year of the Famine — the mortality rate on ships leaving for Canada was around 16 percent. But for some vessels it was much higher. The worst recorded voyage I know of was the 'Larch' from Sligo to Quebec in 1847 — out of 497 passengers, 158 died at sea. That's nearly one in three. Luna: God. And those were the lucky ones who actually got a berth. Lucas: Exactly. And here's something that's maybe a little awkward to bring up, but it's real: the reason we can do episodes like this, diving deep into stories like the coffin ships, is because of a small group of listeners who chip in monthly at buy me a coffee dot com slash fexingo. No ads, no corporate backing — just people who care about keeping this show ad-free and independent. So, genuinely, if that's something that fits, it's what keeps us here. But anyway — back to those ships. Luna: Yeah, it's a good reminder. So what made those ships so deadly? Lucas: A combination of things. First, the passengers were already weakened by malnutrition and disease — typhus, relapsing fever, dysentery. Then you cram them into steerage, often below decks with no ventilation, no sanitation to speak of, and a limited supply of food and water. The voyage could take anywhere from six to twelve weeks depending on the weather. And if the ship hit storms, passengers were often battened down below for days on end. Luna: So it was a perfect breeding ground for typhus. Lucas: Exactly. They called it 'ship fever.' The worst ships were the ones that left from the smaller west coast ports — Westport, Sligo, Galway, Kilrush — because the emigrants were often the most destitute, and the ships were the cheapest and least regulated. In 1847, the British government passed the Passenger Act, which set minimum space requirements — but it was poorly enforced, and ship owners routinely flouted it. Luna: Was there any oversight at all on the Canadian side? Lucas: The Canadian authorities set up quarantine stations at Grosse Île in the St. Lawrence River, and at Partridge Island in New Brunswick. Ships would be inspected, and if there was disease aboard, passengers were offloaded to these quarantine stations for treatment. But Grosse Île was overwhelmed in 1847. Over 5,000 people died there that year — Irish emigrants who survived the crossing only to perish within sight of land. Luna: That's the thing that gets me — they'd made it. And then they died anyway. Lucas: Yeah. The cemetery on Grosse Île holds thousands of graves, most of them unmarked. And the Irish who did survive faced a different kind of hardship — discrimination, poverty, the challenge of starting over in a new country. But they also built communities. The Irish diaspora in the United States — in Boston, New York, Chicago — was largely shaped by Famine-era emigrants. And they carried their culture with them. Luna: I've heard the term 'American wake' — what was that? Lucas: It was exactly what it sounds like. When a family member was leaving for America, the community would gather the night before for a wake — because they knew they would almost certainly never see that person again. The emigrant was considered dead to the community in a very real sense. There were songs, keening, sometimes a mock funeral. It's an incredibly poignant ritual. Luna: Because the crossing was so dangerous, and the distance so vast, that return was unthinkable for most. Lucas: Exactly. So that farewell was final. And one of the most famous accounts of an American wake comes from the writer John Millington Synge, who witnessed one in the Aran Islands decades later. But the tradition was widespread all along the western seaboard. Luna: Were there any efforts to improve conditions on the ships, or was it just a free-for-all? Lucas: There were a few individuals who tried. One I want to mention is Vere Foster. He was an Anglo-Irish philanthropist who personally chartered a ship in 1850 to bring emigrants to America under humane conditions — proper food, clean water, medical care. He even traveled with them to document the experience. His efforts helped lead to the Passenger Act of 1855, which set stricter standards for space, food, and sanitation. Luna: So he's a rare bright spot in that story. Lucas: Absolutely. And the irony is, the ships themselves weren't always the villains. Some were fine — well-run, with decent captains. But the worst ones, the ones we remember as coffin ships, were the ones owned by operators who saw human misery as a profit opportunity. They'd pack in as many passengers as possible, provide the bare minimum, and if people died, well — that was just the cost of doing business. Luna: It makes you wonder how many people never even made it out of port. Lucas: Some died waiting. In 1847, Liverpool was overwhelmed with Irish emigrants waiting for ships. Thousands camped in the streets, in cellars, in warehouses. Disease spread. The city's mortality rate that year was higher than the worst years of the cholera epidemics. It's a story within a story. Luna: And all of this is part of the larger story of the Famine — it's not just about what happened in Ireland, but where the Irish went. Lucas: Exactly. The Famine created the modern Irish diaspora. Today, there are over 30 million Americans who claim Irish ancestry — many of them descended from those who crossed in the coffin ships. And the memory of that crossing, of the suffering and the loss, remains a powerful part of Irish identity, both at home and abroad.