Trans-Atlantic shipping routes.

tabbey

In 1840s and 50s, most Irish emigrants heading for North America, travelled via Liverpool. 
The better class of shipping company, especially US owned companies, did not serve Irish ports, so unless they wanted to use a coffin ship, the Irish had little choice. 
It always seemed to me an additional hardship for people, especially from the south coast of Ireland, to have to sail for 24 hours to Liverpool, wait around for maybe days, and after another day at sea, pass their port of origin.

My query therefore, is whether ships from Liverpool to America, went south on the Irish Sea through Saint George's channel? or headed north past the north coast of Ireland? It may be that ship's masters chose their route depending on current weather or seasonal wind patterns, bearing in mind that long distance ships still relied on sail, as steam power was not yet efficient enough to cross the Atlantic on a bunkerful of coal.

pedroeibar1

Generally they left Liverpool, went south of Ireland and called at Cobh/Queenstown to pick up passengers. However, the port of departure forall passengers was usually described as 'Liverpool' for such voyages. I'm on a phone but will give a longer response later.

pedroeibar1

tabbey wrote: »

In 1840s and 50s, most Irish emigrants heading for North America, travelled via Liverpool.
The better class of shipping company, especially US owned companies, did not serve Irish ports, so unless they wanted to use a coffin ship, the Irish had little choice.
It always seemed to me an additional hardship for people, especially from the south coast of Ireland, to have to sail for 24 hours to Liverpool, wait around for maybe days, and after another day at sea, pass their port of origin.

My query therefore, is whether ships from Liverpool to America, went south on the Irish Sea through Saint George's channel? or headed north past the north coast of Ireland? It may be that ship's masters chose their route depending on current weather or seasonal wind patterns, bearing in mind that long distance ships still relied on sail, as steam power was not yet efficient enough to cross the Atlantic on a bunkerful of coal.

Ships took both routes, the southern passage was favoured for reasons of picking up passengers in Cork, more searoom and wind direction. The North Channel between Ireland Scotland is not a nice place with very strong contrary currents and weather.

Even going to Liverpool and taking an extra few days was nothing compared to the extra time it would take on an older, slower, more decrepit vessel from Ireland.
I dislike the term ‘coffin ship’ when used solely in a Famine context and the notion of many Famine ships being of that type is false. I agree that there were ships used during the Famine that should never have put to sea but this was the exception and not the rule. Also, it equally applied to ships from other European countries and was not particular to Famine emigrants from Ireland. The growth of Irish Nationalism in the post-Famine period followed by Independence has led to considerable distortion of historic fact.

The ‘coffin ship’ of Irish lore is a borrowed term and usually an exaggerated and misused one. For centuries it was used by seamen internationally to describe ships that were unseaworthy. Once a sailor signed on to a ship, he was bound to serve and if he arrived on the quayside and saw his new ‘job’ in bad repair he had no option but to serve. He went aboard, climbing into his ‘coffin’; should he refuse to serve he was arrested, prosecuted and sentenced to jail, usually for a period of up to 6 months. As late as March 1873 fifteen seamen were imprisoned for three months after they refused to go on board the ship Peru, regarded by them as a coffin ship. It sailed with a new crew and soon after sank in the Bay of Biscay with the loss of three lives.

It was quite common to insure unseaworthy ships and send them to sea overloaded with cargo, a shipwreck frequently being the required and most profitable outcome. Several Shipping Acts and Passenger Acts were passed in the 1800’s but the early ones had scant interest or concern for the passengers. (Voyages to the East, India, etc., were on East India Company ships that were solidly built & sound.) The Passenger Vessels Act 1803 was put in place under the guise of instigating better conditions (accommodation, food, etc.) for passengers. In reality it was a means to prevent emigration; there was a labour shortage, landlords did not wish to lose workers/tied tenants so they successfully pushed for the legislation. It resulted in an increase in the cost of a passage from £3 to £10 so it effectively put the passage price beyond the reach of most.

In 1835, following discussions between ship-owners and insurance underwriters, Lloyds introduced the ‘Lloyds Rule’ which was a recommendation on loading cargo, not passenger oriented. Efforts to improve seaworthiness were continually impeded and blocked - both Houses, Lords and Commons, were populated by the ‘Landed interest’ and a merchant class who believed government should not pass legislation that restricted the freedom of employers to run their businesses as they saw fit. This hit all passengers & crews, not just the Irish.

In 1836 a Parliamentary Select Committee examine the causes of the steady increase in shipwrecks. Its findings drew media attention, as did the condition of some Famine voyages and from 1846, passenger ships had to be inspected by officially approved surveyors. The next step came with the Merchant Shipping Act of 1850, which brought regulation under the Board of Trade. All of this did not have much effect, as an average of two thousand ships were lost annually. In 1867 alone, there were 1,313 shipwrecks causing the death of 2,340 British sailors and 137 passengers (A) Note the death ratio of crew to passengers.

Foremost among campaigners for reform was Samuel Plimsoll, (he of ‘Plimsoll Line’ fame). He wrote Our Seamen (published 1873), in which he produced documentary evidence showing that nearly 1,000 sailors a year were being drowned on ships foundering around Britain’s shores. It was his efforts that raised the bar of security and ‘relative’ comfort.
. ,
Poorer passengers from all countries travelled in what we today would consider appalling conditions, bit which, in reality, were just a little worse than those in which they had lived. Also, they were not much different to the accommodation of the crew.

Liverpool was a major port and it had for several years regular sailings to NYC and Boston. Smaller ships that could not withstand an Atlantic crossing would sail to Liverpool from Dublin, Cork and smaller ports in Ireland, disembark their passengers who would then sail onward to the ‘New World’. (Just as today many air travellers fly to Heathrow, Schiphol or Frankfurt to fly long distance.) Many of these ships also called at Cobh/Queenstown and took on passengers there. Henry Ford’s father and grandfather travelled from West Cork via Cork City to Queenstown and took ship to Canada. In the 1846 – 1851 period a total of 1845 or 60% of ships carrying Irish to NYC originated in Liverpool. Irish ports accounted for 24% of direct sailings . (B) Generally the journey on the better Liverpool ships took four to six weeks.

The ‘coffin ships’ of Famine ill-repute were not the norm, nor were they plentiful. Large numbers of people wanted to get out of Ireland and this put huge pressure on available space. Some ship-owners profiteered and temporarily converted their cargo boats (which had carried lumber to Britain/Ireland from North America) and carried passengers in cobbled-together accommodation in the holds on the return voyage. Most of the so-called coffin ships sailed directly from small ports in Ireland, the better ships sailed from Liverpool. One reason the coffin ships achieved notoriety is that they sailed mainly in 1846/7, in the ‘off season’ i.e. Spring and Winter, This was one of the worst winters in living memory and a period when gales were likely, ice would be encountered and the weather was considerably worse, colder, wetter and unsuited to a TransAtlantic passage. One fever patient in a confined space would spread like wildfire among passengers who already were weakened by Famine. The deck of a sailing ship in winter on the North Atlantic is a deadly place for the scantily clad.

The sailing ships took the standard navigational ‘Great Circle route’, still used today by ships and planes. Early in the Famine the ships went to NYC and Boston, but they in later years went to Canada as the time at sea was shorter (thus less expensive). Many of those who went ‘passage paid’ by a landlord stopped in Canada and made their own way south. Among those who took this route was the Ford family, minus Mrs. Ford, who either died on the voyage or soon after arrival.

An interesting article on Safety at Sea is here



Note (A) J.W. Bull: "An introduction to safety at sea".
Note (B) Tepper, Famine Emigrant Lists, etc, Genealogical Publ. Co.Inc., Baltimore 1983.

tabbey

Thank you Pedroeibar for that very comprehensive reply

I saw a documentary on TV a couple of days ago, on the very sujects you mentioned, coffin ships, imprisonment of seamen for refusing to serve on them, and the uphill battle faced by Plimsoll to improve matters.

Perusing newspapers from the late 1840s and early 1850s, it is remarkable how many adverts there were cross channel ships from Irish ports to Liverpool, as well as transatlantic ships from Liverpool to American ports.

News reports also heavily featured emigration. The newspapers I looked at most, were those in Louth and Waterford. The Louth papers, as well as advertising ships from Dundalk and Drogheda, also advertised road services from places such as Cos Monaghan and Cavan, and even further. Editorials would often refer to the daily haemorrhage of farmers from such places. People often think of the emigrants being the poorest, but in fact the poorest could not afford the fares, unless it was paid for by a poor law union or a landlord, and this was statistically insignificant. The typical emigrant was in fact the more comfortable farmer.

One Waterford paper ran an editorial something along the lines of would the the last to leave please turn off the light. It is painful to read this type of report,it really conveys the despair which pervaded the nation during and after the great famine.

For this reason, I raised the issue of emigrants having to travel via Liverpool, in the pre-Cobh era. For passengers leaving Waterford for example,assuming they could go on deck, it must have been torture to see Hook Head,thinking we are back where we started.

Cobh / Queenstown started as a stopping port in 1848, but even into the 1850s many were going via Liverpool. It would have been handy to have a feeder service from Waterford and Wexford to Queenstown, perhaps these started in the 1850s, and of course the railway would have been an option from that decade.

pedroeibar1

Thanks for that info.
Mizen Head and the Fastnet are regularly mentioned as the 'last sight' of the ould sod. I don't know about rail travel to Queenstown, but the train did not get to Killarney until the 1850's so rail travel was not a factor in Kerry emigration.

My main interest (in shipping) is in specific Famine-era emigrations from Kerry to America and 19th C convict ship sailings from Ireland to Australia. I’ve also an interest in naval history 1790 – 1850 (ish) so there is an odd overlap.

Many people walked from the countryside to the ports and there also were designated meeting places as departure points – e.g. there is a bridge on the Ring of Kerry still known as “Boston Bridge”. Most of the Lansdowne Estate (Kenmare area) tenants went from Cork/Queenstown, and were brought there by cart. Periodically some decided to remain in the port of departure be it Cork or Liverpool. In other ports there were near-riots when rumours spread that a ship was on the point of departure and crowds tried to rush aboard.

Even a few years after the Famine a journalist from “The Illustrated London News,” in Kerry during May 1851 wrote of watching a priest give his blessing to departing immigrants and their tearful families, and continued “It was not pleasant to linger amid a scene like this; so to dispel our sadness, we took a last farewell of the group, and ere long found ourselves upon the road to Kenmare, and in the midst of a train of from 200 to 300 men and women, boys and girls, varying in age from ten to thirty years. They looked most picturesque in their gay plaid shawls and straw bonnets, and were all on their way to Cork, to go on board the emigrant ship.”

Tough times, but the best option.

whisky_galore

Galway was promoted as a trans-Atlantic port as an alternative to Queenstown but it never really took off.

This huge railway terminal in Blacksod, of all places, was intended to serve a liner terminal, needless to say it never got off the drawing board, what with the outbreak of world-wide unpleasantness amongst other things.

http://archiseek.com/2013/1915-railway-terminus-blacksod-bay-co-mayo/

tabbey

whisky_galore wrote: »

Galway was promoted as a trans-Atlantic port as an alternative to Queenstown but it never really took off.

This huge railway terminal in Blacksod, of all places, was intended to serve a liner terminal, needless to say it never got off the drawing board, what with the outbreak of world-wide unpleasantness amongst other things.

http://archiseek.com/2013/1915-railway-terminus-blacksod-bay-co-mayo/

Reminds me of Cork City Hall, built 1920s/30s.

Seriously though, this country and maybe many countries, experienced dozens of grandiose railway schemes, all of which were guaranteed to make money, according to their promoters. They were trying to sell their ideas to investors, and made ludicrous claims, in an attempt to attract people with more money than sense.

pedroeibar1

whisky_galore wrote: »

Galway was promoted as a trans-Atlantic port as an alternative to Queenstown but it never really took off.

This huge railway terminal in Blacksod, of all places, was intended to serve a liner terminal, needless to say it never got off the drawing board, what with the outbreak of world-wide unpleasantness amongst other things.

http://archiseek.com/2013/1915-railway-terminus-blacksod-bay-co-mayo/

That notion was around from the early days of steam trains. A departure from Galway saved about 500 miles or a full day’s steaming. The Blacksod project never really had a hope of getting off the ground and simply was yet another attempt to initiate sailings from the West.

There were two transatlantic lines operating from Galway by the 1850’s, the best known being the Galway Line’ which had 16 ships. It had a very chequered history. Because they ran all year round, several winter sailings involved accidents due to ice, fog or storms. It even had contracts from the Royal Mail, the US and (I think) Canada. It regularly failed to meet crossing deadlines – affecting income from Mail - and it lost the contracts to competitors. Then the Valentia to Newfoundland cable was completed in 1858 so that catered to the need of sending urgent messages; the US Civil War also had an impact..

A book on the Galway line ‘Transatlantic Triumph and Heroic Failure’ by Timothy Collins is a very enjoyable read and is meticulously researched – I’ve added it to my re-read list as I’ve forgotten much since it was published about 20 years ago

Boulevardier

On a related point, was "steerage" the same thing as "third class"?

tabbey

Boulevardier wrote: »

On a related point, was "steerage" the same thing as "third class"?

Yes.

First class was saloon, situated near the centre of the ship,where there was less up and down motion.
Steerage was behind it, more prone to seasickness.
The area in front of Saloon usually had space for mail or goods.

When I was young, my parents always referred to saloon or steerage in relation to mailboat to Holyhead, or the B&I to Liverpool.

Going back to Irish Sea crossings mid 1800s, however, advertisements show Cabin or Deck. Cabin was five times the price of Deck. If there were no cattle on board, deck passengers were allowed to shelter in the livestock accommodation, otherwise they had to stay on deck, regardless of the weather.

Boulevardier

OK, but then where was 2nd class, which Titanic and ships like her definitely had as well?

tabbey

Most ships using first second and third followed railway parlance.

On trains, the vast majority travelled third class, The elite were first class, very few used second class, most trains did not have any second class by the mid 20th century. For this reason, CIE renamed third as second about 1956, and a few years later, standard class.

On ships, very large vessels such as the Titanic would have all options, but on cross channel I only remember two classes. A lot of people who would normally travel standard on the train,chose to pay a bit extra for saloon on the boat, you could buy such an integrated ticket. On the boat, first class had couches and was less busy, so you could lie down on a couch most nights. Also, if you took off your shoes and slept on the sofa,you were less likely to have your footwear stolen than in the cheaper accommodation.

nuac

There was a lot of discussion in Mayo about this route - Called the All Red Route as it would be from ( then ) UK to Canada rather to US.

There were competing proposals to extend the railway line from Ballina/Killala to Blacksod, or to take a spur from the Westport-Achill line at Mulranny

john W McMahon

I know that my great grandmother went by ship from Galway to the US in 1921, does anybody know how that was possible? was there a transatlantic service at that time?