Coffin Ship

by William Henry

  This cross was erected and dedicated May 30, 1914 by the A.O.H. and the L.A.A.O.H. of Massachusetts to mark the final resting place of about forty-five Irish emigrants from a total company of ninety-nine who lost their lives on Grampus Ledge off Cohasset, October 7, 1849 in the wreck of the Brig St. John from Galway, Ireland. R.I.P.[2]

  On 21 August 1949, almost one hundred years after the brig St. John sank, Archbishop Cushing travelled to Cohasset to celebrate a solemn pontifical mass in memory of all who had lost their lives in the tragedy. It was celebrated on the grounds of St Anthony’s church on South Main Street. Archbishop Cushing also sponsored a poetry competition for the anniversary of the disaster. Contestants were required to recount the tragic story of the St. John in verse. The winner was Professor Charles Brady of Canisius College, Buffalo; the runners-up included Herbert Kenny, Edward Myers and James Hanlon. A centenary commemoration booklet was produced for the anniversary mass. (Archbishop Cushing later became a cardinal and officially dedicated the Cathedral of Our Lady Assumed into Heaven and St Nicholas ‘New Cathedral’ in Galway city on 15 August 1965.) Below is a list of the priests who took part in the St. John centenary commemoration ceremony. Revd Michael J. Houlihan, listed below, was chaplain to the Ancient Order of Hibernians:

  Revd Patrick J. Waters, Deacon of Honour to His Excellency

  Revd Michael J. Houlihan, Deacon of Honour to His Excellency

  Revd Michael J. Splain, Assisting Priest

  Revd Thomas A. Flynn, Deacon of the Mass

  Revd James F. Grimes, Sub-Deacon of the Mass

  Revd Fredrick R. McManus, Master of Ceremonies

  Revd Joseph Daley, Assistant Master of Ceremonies

  Revd Joseph W. Leahy, Thurifer

  Revd Francis S. Keany, Cross Bearer

  Revd Francis D. Scully, Acolyte

  Revd Ralph Enos, Acolyte

  Revd Edward D. Tangney, Gremial Bearer

  Revd Martin P. Harney, Bugia Bearer

  Revd James F. Cassidy, Mitre Bearer

  Revd John W. Mahoney, Crozier Bearer

  Revd Patrick J. Flaherty, Book Bearer

  Revd Edmund W. Croke, Torch Bearer

  Revd John J. Kelly, Torch Bearer

  Revd Thomas A. Dwyer, Torch Bearer

  Revd Ambrose B. Flynn, Torch Bearer

  Revd Frederick R. Condon, Choir Conductor

  Revd William J. Desmond

  Revd Lawrence Crowley

  Mr Francis Regan, Train Bearer[3]

  John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola of Lettermullen was the driving force behind a number of events that were arranged to commemorate the 150th anniversary of the tragedy.

  His life-long interest in the disaster had begun as a child, when he heard an old woman in Connemara telling the story of the brig St. John. He travelled to Boston in 1998 and requested that an anniversary committee be set up there, while he in turn would establish one in Ireland. The two committees, one in Boston and the other in Lettermullen, Connemara, were set up to raise awareness of the plight of the Irish during the famine and to organise a commemoration. The events were held on 9 and 10 October 1999. A reception was held in St Anthony’s Parish Hall, Cohasset, and included a short historical presentation on the St. John. A commemorative journal was also produced containing advertisements from businesses that supported the events. Support came from both sides of the Atlantic and the proceeds were donated to charity. During a social evening of music and song, held in the Teacher’s Union Hall, Dorchester, John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola presented the Boston Brig St. John committee with a model of a pucán, a traditional Irish sailing vessel. At 3 p.m. on 10 October the anniversary mass was celebrated by Fr Bernard Law (today a cardinal) in Saint Anthony’s church, Cohasset. Following the mass, a boat trip to Grampus Ledge and Minot’s Lighthouse was organised. A wreath-laying ceremony also took place in Cohasset cemetery.

  The St. John celtic cross (Courtesy of John Costello)

  A documentary film about the St. John and the events surrounding its tragic end was broadcast on the Seán Folan Show in Boston and recordings of it were later made available to the public. It is also hoped that a famine memorial will be opened near Mutton Island Lighthouse in Galway and dedicated to the memory of all those who fled starvation and disease during the Irish famine.[4]

  The following poem to the memory of the famine victims was discovered among the John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection, but no author was recorded for this very poignant work.

  ‘To Their Memory’

  How many died in forty-five,

  The first year of the hunger?

  When starvation cursed the old ones first,

  And then tormented the younger.

  And when we cried as the praties died,

  And turned black in the soil;

  Who was there to hear our prayer

  For food that was not spoiled?

  And where was God when the Irish sod

  Gave up its putrid yield,

  And the sickening smell of a crop from hell

  Came up from every field.

  ’Twas not God’s hand that cursed the land,

  But the hand of a human master,

  Who turned his back when the spuds turned black,

  And created that awful disaster.

  For the landlord’s fields gave abundant yields,

  But we Irish could not afford it;

  So fathers and sons were held off with guns

  While the harvested crop was exported.

  And the men of renown, who worked for the crown,

  To administer public care,

  Heard our plea from across the sea,

  And pretended that we weren’t there.

  How many fell sick in forty-six

  When the potato failed again,

  And malnutrition on frail conditions

  Claimed children, women and men.

  And what intent had the government?

  Did they try to ease our pain?

  Or did they try to keep prices high

  By forbidding the import of grain.

  The only food that they didn’t exclude

  Was American Indian maize;

  For it posed no rival to the landlord’s survival,

  And for that it was given high praise.

  But America warned that Indian corn

  Was too hard, and had to be grated;

  But they gave it away to the poor anyway,

  And it cut through our bellies like razors.

  Then, when a man died, his children and bride

  Were sent to the workhouse for hire,

  Where lice and fleas spread dreadful disease,

  And fever set them on fire.

  Again we implored, and again they ignored

  As our dead were hauled off in carts.

  Uncaring, they slept, while mothers wept;

  And their apathy hardened our hearts.

  Then, dear God in heaven, came black forty-seven,

  A year that in horror still stands;

  For the crown ordained that the landlords maintain

  The tenants who lived on their lands.

  So what did they do, these faithful and true,

  Defenders of church and of crown;

  They dispossessed our families like pests,

  And tore our wee cottages down.

  With no fixed abodes, we wandered the roads

  Through the fiercest winter in years;

  Clad only in rags; our possessions in bags;

  With nothing to taste but our tears.

  Wracked with pain we wandered the lanes

  In search of berries and roots;

  ’Til the crown rushed through an evening curfew,

  And arrested all those on the loose.

  Alone and forsaken, our women were taken,

  And sent as indentured servants,

  To lands far away from their own native clay,

  In spite of their pleas, grim and fervent.

  And pity the children, the
innocent children,

  Whose parents were laid in their graves;

  Too young to pay rent, they were hastily sent

  To factories and sweatshops like slaves.

  Then came the date in forty-eight

  When the landlords, cruel and clever,

  To avoid being forced to absorb further cost

  Discarded their tenants forever.

  They consigned us to trips aboard coffin ships,

  Not suited for man nor for beast;

  In holds dark and damp, we were crowded and cramped:

  The living beside the deceased.

  And as we lay dying; some praying, some crying,

  Like lifeless cargo, all stacked,

  The ship’s rolling motion across the wide ocean,

  Made our empty bellies contract.

  Thousands were drowned on the ships that went down,

  Never again to be seen;

  If tombstones were floated for each death noted,

  You could walk from Brooklyn to Skibbereen.

  We barely survived on the ships that arrived

  In the new land across the wide seas;

  But weary and sore, we were stopped at the door,

  For they said that we carried disease.

  As the Banshee keened, we were quarantined,

  And more came on every wave;

  Then, some were freed; alone and in need,

  While the rest found American graves.

  Then came the time in forty-nine

  When the rest of the world grew critical,

  And loudly decried such genocide

  For reasons that were only political.

  So the government tried to stem the tide

  Of the world’s admonishing blast,

  By producing a few potatoes that grew,

  And declaring the crisis had passed.

  But the official’s voice didn’t make us rejoice

  That the land had finally been blessed;

  For as we chewed on nettles, our spuds fed their cattle,

  For by now, we’d been all dispossessed.

  Then came the group with the watered down soup

  To set up their charity kitchen;

  But the price was too high, for to qualify

  We would have to give up our religion.

  To see parents denying, as children were dying,

  To take the soup or the porridge,

  Was both demonstration and documentation

  Of a people’s faith, and their courage.

  No matter who stated the crisis abated,

  We still knew disease and starvation,

  ’Til the final aid that helped it to fade

  Came from Irish in far away nations.

  They’d dispersed our kin to the stormy winds,

  And that became our salvation;

  For though they tried to commit genocide,

  They failed to achieve liquidation.

  And to our defence came our own emigrants,

  Now scattered all over the earth;

  Who’d improved their lot, but never forgot

  The land that had given them birth.

  Sisters and brothers wrote back to their mothers,

  Or any one they had left living;

  Each letter returning as much of their earnings

  As they could afford to be giving.

  And the greedy and sinister government ministers,

  Who’d thought that they’d finally erased us,

  Were astonished to learn that our sons would return,

  And that in the end was what braced us.

  Today we recall the memory of all

  The disease, the starvation and sorrow;

  Of those who perished for the faith they cherished

  And the hope of a better tomorrow.

  But let not our fate, be guided by hate,

  For the lord will have taken fair vengeance;

  Remember instead, our own Irish dead,

  And say a prayer in silent remembrance.[5]

  Notes

  [1] Thoreau, Henry David, Cape Cod (1865), pp. 20, 21, 22.

  [2]Brig St. John of Galway was Cohasset’s Worst Shipwreck, Cohasset Historical Society. John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection.

  Fraser, Robert, Cohasset Vignettes (1981).

  Miscellaneous articles and letters from the John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection: ‘The President of Cohasset Central Cemetery Corporation’ (26-5-1914); ‘Catholics to Honour Irish Immigrants Lost in Cohasset Shipwreck of 1849’ (1949); ‘The Wreck of the Brig St. John’.

  The Boston Daily Herald: ‘The Burial of the Victims of the St. John – Melancholy Sight’ (12-10-1849).

  The Galway Vindicator: ‘Awful Shipwreck at Minot’s Ledge – Loss of St. John of Galway. About One Hundred Drowned – Men, Women and Children’ (3-11-1849).

  The Pilot: George E. Ryan, ‘Wreck of Brig St. John’ (October 1979).

  [3]Centenary Commemoration (booklet) (21-8-1949).

  The Pilot: George E. Ryan, ‘Wreck of Brig St. John’ (October 1979).

  [4]Brig St. John of Galway was Cohasset’s Worst Shipwreck, Cohasset Historical Society. John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection.

  The Irish Emigrant: ‘Brig Saint John Anniversary’ (13-12-1999). ‘Ninety-Nine Irish Lives Lost in Brig St. John Shipwreck’ (September, 1999).

  [5] Miscellaneous articles and letters from the John Bhaba Jaick Ó Congaola collection: ‘To Their Memory’.

  List of the Brig St. John’s Passengers and Crew

  While most sources estimate the number of victims of the St. John tragedy to be ninety-nine and the survivors twenty-two, there are others who place the death toll as high as one hundred and forty-six. In fact, Northern Maritime Research Canada places the loss of life somewhere between one hundred and forty-four and one hundred and sixty-four people. Various sources also report a different figure for that of the survivors. One of these reports, which was published in the Galway Vindicator, suggests that there were between twenty and thirty more passengers on board the St. John than was declared in the manifest. The Boston Post reported that two of the survivors accused Captain Oliver of falsifying the list of passengers, claiming that there were an additional twenty or thirty people listed in a memorandum book that the captain kept in his personal possession. Another puzzling aspect of the disaster is the disappearance of the ship’s official manifest. Was it lost during the storm? Was it deliberately left behind so that the actual number of passengers on board would remain unknown? It may never be known, but what is certain is that there were more people on board the St. John that terrible night than was recorded in the official documents.[1]

  The main list of passengers available today seems to have been compiled by an American reporter. It contains more details regarding the victims from Clare than those from Galway. This would indicate that whoever supplied the information was more familiar with the Clare contingent on board. It is evident from the list that follows that the reporter who recorded the names had some difficulty understanding the Irish accent, resulting in errors in the spelling of names and addresses. Additional errors are also believed to have occurred when the list was sent to the printers, where the reporter’s ‘longhand’ writing was misread. The following are examples of such errors. The first two letters of the name Flannigan were misread as the letter H. One woman, a Margaret Keenan, seems to have been recorded twice under two spelling variations of Ennistymon. Confusion surrounds the first name of Honora or Mary Burke; some sources also spell her name as Honour. For this listing she is recorded as Honora (Mary) Burke. Peggy Mullen was recorded as Meggy Mullen; this has also been corrected. Most sources record one of the surviving sailors as William Larkin; however, The Boston Mail recorded him as John. Other differences arise in the same newspaper. James Moran is recorded as James Morgan. Winny Galvin is recorded as Minny Galvin. Miss Brooks is recorded as Mrs Brooks. Andrew Frost is recorded as Andrew Forrest. One of the surviving sailors, Henry O’Hern is not r
ecorded in the newspaper at all. The three Mulkenan sisters are recorded as Mulkennan. In the cabin passenger list there is a Margaret Flannigan – could this be Mary Flannigan? In the same section an N. Flannigan is listed – could this be Nancy Hannagan? Martha Perky’s name appeared as Martha Purky and it was stated that she was related to Peggy Purky. There are three persons named McDarratt recorded, but these are possibly McDermott.[2]

  Spelling errors also occurred in place names with different variations of the same name being recorded. These variations are included in the list along with the names believed to be correct, such as Ennistymon/Inistivan/Innistivan, and so on. There are obviously other misspellings recorded on the list of the victims, but as there were no records available to identify the correct spellings, they will remain as they were first recorded.[3]

  The following are examples of survivors who were not listed among the passengers or crew: Mrs Quinlan, recorded in the writings of Elizabeth Lothrop; the infant saved by Captain Lothrop; Martin and Patrick Flaherty (brothers); and a second Patrick Flaherty, all of whom returned to Lettermullen. If the brig St. John did indeed anchor off the coast of Lettermullen to take on water and extra passengers shortly after first setting sail, then the names of these additional passengers were not recorded. This being the case, there were more people on board than were listed in the ship’s manifest. The Boston Mail records a Benjamin O’Brien as a surviving sailor, but he is not recorded in any other sources. M. Rootching is also recorded among the passengers saved, but he too is not recorded in any other source.[4]