A coffin ship (Irish: long cónra) is a popular idiom used to describe the ships that carried Irish migrants escaping the Great Irish Famine and Highlanders displaced by the Highland Clearances.[1]
Coffin ships carrying emigrants, crowded and disease-ridden, with poor access to food and water, resulted in the deaths of many people as they crossed the Atlantic, and led to the 1847 North American typhus epidemic at quarantine stations in Canada.[2] Owners of coffin ships provided as little food, water and living space as was legally possible, if they obeyed the law at all.[3] With death rates commonly reaching 20 percent and horror stories of 50 percent dying, these vessels soon became known as coffin ships. Those who died were buried at sea.
While coffin ships were the cheapest way to cross the Atlantic, mortality rates of 30 percent aboard the coffin ships were common.[4] It was said that sharks could be seen following the ships, because so many bodies were thrown overboard.[5][6][7]
- ^ "The Highland Clearances". thesonsofscotland.co.uk.
- ^ Gallagher, The Reverend John A. (1936). "The Fever Fleet – The Irish Emigration of 1847 and Its Canadian Consequences". CCHA Report. Retrieved 20 June 2023.
- ^ Plimsoll Line and coffin Ships
- ^ "Early Emigrant Letter Stories". eligrantletters.com. Archived from the original on 12 April 2010.
- ^ Hickey, D.J.; J. E. Doherty (1980). A dictionary of Irish history since 1800. Barnes & Noble. p. 80. ISBN 978-0-389-20160-1.
sharks.
- ^ Wakin, Edward (2001). Enter the Irish-American. iUniverse. p. 29. ISBN 978-0-595-22730-3.
- ^ Davis, John H (1992). The Kennedys: dynasty and disaster. S.P.I. Books. p. 11. ISBN 978-1-56171-060-7.