Lesson 5: How the Irish Fled

'Coffin Ships'

‘Furniture was a luxury .In 1837 the parish of Tullaghobagly, County Donegal , had a population of 9,000. These people owned between them 10 beds , 95 chairs and 243 stools. There is no reason to believe the situation in Tullahobagly was unusual.’ (8)

It was common practice to sleep on straw or rushes. Many of the Emigrants, when they saw the bunks knocked up in the boats , saw them as coffins and refused to sleep in them, sleeping on the floor instead. The phrase ‘coffin ship’ came to take on a much more sinister meaning towards the end of the 1840s. But however bad the conditions on board ship may have been, Emigration offered a slim chance of survival in contrast to remaining at home.

I wrote ‘The Emigrants’ to commemorate :

‘Those who left the land and never managed to return and those who were returned to the earth because they never managed to leave.’ (9)

£1 would buy a ticket from Ireland to Liverpool , where there might be some chance of earning the price of a ticket onwards. However , the Irish were certainly not welcome in Liverpool .

‘We think the parish authorities have evinced a proper degree of forbearance in allowing the innumerable swarms of Irish beggars to infest the streets of Liverpool so long. But there is a limit to everything , and we have reason to know that , unless the present hired invaders be returned to Dublin or Waterford, their numbers will be daily increased. ------- ‘Give these beggars , we therefore say , a loaf of bread and send them home’ (10)

And they did. England returned boatloads of poor and starving were returned to Ireland rather than let them stay. Irish paupers could be brought before the magistrates and immediately returned to Ireland under the Poor Removal Acts.

The editorial went further and accused the gentry of Dublin as having the meanness,

‘to subscribe their shillings to transmit their own famishing poor to beg in England.’ (11)

Certainly , landlords did offer supported passages for many of their tenants and more about this will be discussed in another lesson. £3 paid for a ticket to Quebec , as the British Government subsidised fares to British North America to entice more emigrants to work in the timber trade. It is a testimony to the frugal nature and strong legs of the Irish Emigrants that there are towns scattered throughout New England ,such as Bangor , Derry , Londonderry , Newry , founded by those who landed in Quebec and walked South. To sail directly into New York , Boston and Philadelphia cost £5.

Emigrant Game

In all of the coffin ships bound for New York
You’ll find people from Belfast , Newry and Cork
All of them hungrily seeking for work
And most of them never came home

Their spirits sought freedom
Love , fortune and fame
So they played up the part
In the Emigrant Game
Helped in their small way by removing their name
And most of them never came home

And all Irish families seem set to lose one
It may be a daughter , more likely a son
Who as soon as they grow
Their time comes to go
And most of them never come home

All our young eagles long to fly from the nest
For years they’ve been leaving in droves from the West
Exporting people is what we do best
And most of them never come home

Ships Masters

The Emigrants were totally at the mercy of the Masters of the ship. A number of these were unscrupulous in their treatment of their passengers. Often voyages were delayed , to force travellers to use lodgings in the ports . Numbers of Emigrants used up their savings in this way and wound up travelling to US as indentured servants , working up to 5 years to pay off their indebtedness to the Ship’s Master. Some ships even advertised :

The Success bound for Baltimore A few well-recommended Servants/ Redemptioners will be taken Will definitely sail on May 10

(13)

Redemptioners was a name recognised in Pennsylvania for servants who had signed as bond servants for a period of 5 years. Slavery itself would have been more acceptable than the prevailing conditions in Ireland. Ship’s Masters also were in a position to show smaller numbers of passengers on their manifests than were actually carried which has proved to be another reason for hopelessly inadequate information on the numbers who fled the country. They could also profit from the supply of food which they were obliged to offer their passengers. This often was of the worst available sort and even more frequently portions were inaccurately weighed out

When steamships eventually came into service around 1850 , the voyage was considerably shortened to between 3 to 4 weeks. However, in the wind- blown Atlantic , the Emigrants were often at sea between 6 to 10 weeks and battened down in the holds in times of storms.

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