Emigrant ships

• Jeanie Johnston · Built 1847; lost 1858 · Tralee · Kerry
  A three-masted barque built in Quebec in 1847 by John Munn and bought by the Tralee merchants John Donovan & Sons. She sailed from Kerry to Quebec on 24 April 1848 with 193 emigrants, and between 1848 and 1855 made 16 voyages to Quebec, Baltimore and New York, taking 47 days on average; the most she carried was 254, in 1852. The article states that no crew or passenger life was ever lost on board, and credits Captain James Attridge, who did not overload her, and the ship's doctor, Richard Blennerhassett. She became waterlogged in 1858 under a new English owner; the crew clung to the rigging for nine days and were rescued. A replica, finished in 2002 at a cost of just under €14m, is now a museum ship.
  Source: Jeanie Johnston ↗
• Dunbrody · Built 1845; lost 1875 · New Ross · Wexford
  A three-masted barque built in Quebec in 1845 for the Graves family, merchants of New Ross. A cargo ship carrying timber and guano, she was fitted with bunks and from 1845 to 1851 carried emigrants on the outward leg between April and September. The article calls her mortality rate exceptionally low and gives one passage with 313 passengers, almost twice her usual number, on which 6 died. She foundered on the Labrador coast in 1875. A full-scale replica, built at New Ross between 1997 and 2001, is open to visitors on the quay there.
  Source: Dunbrody (1845) ↗ · Dunbrody (2001) ↗
• The "coffin ships" (long cónra) · 1840s · Atlantic crossings
  The idiom for the crowded, disease-ridden ships that carried Famine emigrants, and Highlanders of the Clearances, across the Atlantic. Wikipedia's article says death rates "commonly" reached 20 percent, with "horror stories" of 50 percent, and elsewhere that 30 percent was common; these are general statements, not counts. It also notes that the term was hardly used during the Famine itself and was popularised in the early 1870s by the MP Samuel Plimsoll, then taken up during the Land War. Passenger Acts from 1803 set limits, but were not always enforced and did not cover ships sailing from non-British ports.
  Source: Coffin ship ↗
• The 1847 crossing to Canada, counted · 1847 · British North America
  The best-counted year. The Grosse Isle article gives, for 1847: 89,738 Irish emigrants embarked from United Kingdom ports for Canada; 5,293 died on the journey, 3,452 at the Grosse Isle quarantine station, 1,041 at the Quebec Emigrant Hospital and 1,965 at the Kingston and Toronto Emigrant Hospital — 15,330 in all, or 17% of those who embarked. The 5,293 deaths at sea is the estimate of Robert Whyte, pseudonymous author of the 1847 Famine ship diary; the article says the exact number who died at sea is unknown. Separately, an estimated 3,000 to 6,000 died of ship fever at Windmill Point in Montreal in 1847–48.
  Source: Grosse Isle and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site ↗
• Grosse Île quarantine station · From 1832; crisis of 1847 · St Lawrence River, Quebec
  An island quarantine depot below Quebec, set up in 1832 for cholera and reopened for Famine emigrants with typhus. In 1847 it was overwhelmed: on 5 June 25,000 Irish were held on the island or in ships anchored off it. The article says it is believed that over 3,000 Irish died on the island and that over 5,000 are buried in its cemetery, the largest Famine burial ground outside Ireland; four doctors died of typhus. A Celtic cross was unveiled in 1909 and Canada made the island a National Historic Site in 1974.
  Source: Grosse Isle and the Irish Memorial National Historic Site ↗
• Ellis Island and Annie Moore · 1 January 1892 · New York Harbor · Cork
  The federal immigration station opened on 1 January 1892. Its first immigrant was Annie Moore from County Cork, aged 17, who arrived on the Guion Line steamship Nevada with her brothers Anthony and Philip to join their parents, and was given a $10 gold piece. From 1892 to 1954 about 12 million immigrants were processed there. Statues of her by Jeanne Rynhart stand at Cobh and on Ellis Island. Annie Moore among Irish women →
  Source: Ellis Island ↗ · Annie Moore (immigrant) ↗
• Cobh (Queenstown) · Queenstown 1849–1920 · Great Island, Cork Harbour · Cork
  Renamed Queenstown for Queen Victoria's visit in 1849 and Cobh in 1920. Wikipedia gives it as the departure point for 2.5 million of the 6 million Irish people who emigrated to North America between 1848 and 1950. It was the Titanic's last port of call on 11 April 1912. The Cobh Heritage Centre tells the emigration story today.
  Source: Cobh ↗
• The Liverpool route · 1840s onward · Liverpool, England
  Many emigrants crossed the Irish Sea first and sailed for America from Liverpool, which the city's article describes as a major departure point for English and Irish emigrants to North America. In the 1840s Irish migrants arrived there "by the hundreds of thousands" because of the Famine; many settled, while a large share went on to the United States or to the industrial towns of Lancashire, Yorkshire and the Midlands. No count of Irish emigrants sailing via Liverpool is given in that source.
  Source: Liverpool ↗

No complete passenger lists survive for most Famine sailings, and there is no agreed figure for deaths at sea across all routes and years. The 1847 Canadian figures are the best counted; for the United States route and other years we give no total rather than guess.

Emigration from Ireland → · Famous emigrants → · The Great Famine → · Famine memorials → · Shipwrecks → · Harbours and boats →