SNIPPET: The "Hannah" was the smallest vessel in the famine fleet at a mere 59 feet long and 19 feet wide! How small she must have seemed when moored at Limerick quayside on the River Shannon, waiting to embark for NY. Barely large enough for 60 passengers, she was manned by a small crew of eight of which two were apprentices in their teens, yet she crossed the Atlantic eight times, see below... Edward Lawton's, "The Famine Ships: The Irish Exodus to America 1846-51," (1996), is quite fascinating. Perhaps you can find a copy if the subject interests you. Included is information regarding ports, data on emigration from Ireland in earlier years, a few passenger lists, some captain and crew information and that of ship owners. Included are riveting newspaper accounts of particular voyages (passengers forced to abandon ship and huddle together on an iceberg!). Also found in the book is information on landlords, reproduced official documents, ticket prices, ship provisions, maritime laws, diary excerpts of passengers, governmental inquiries, horrifying accounts of ship fever from Grosse Island (Canada), a little background regarding immigration to other countries. Of course there are many accounts of assistance and personal courage, and some nice paintings of particular Famine ships. To give you an idea - chapter titles: From Dublin's Fair City, Catholic Persecu! tion, Land of the Free, Hunger and Exile, Voyage of the "Jamestown" and Others, The Fords of Fairlane, Absentee Landlord, Widow McCormack, A Noble Rescue, Comfort for the Convicts, "Joy of My Heart," Surviving the Icebergs, Flags for Convenience, On the Way to the White House, The Famine Ships Sail Again, A Miraculous Escape, Life in America, From Wexford to Wexford, The Smallest of the Famine Fleet, The Absence of Evidence, Finding a Scapegoat, Ship's Cook for a Shilling, Brave Men of Nantucket, and Ireland Forever. For the passengers of the "Hannah" her spring voyage was uneventful in 1850 from Limerick despite her heavy load. After 43 days at sea, she arrived safe and sound on June 7th at South Street (NY) seaport. The "Maria Brennan" came in on the next tide, followed by the "Triumph" four days later. (Note - The passenger list for the "Triumph" is listed in the book, missing Mary-ANN CUNNINGHAM's name; only three years old, she was buried at sea, per the author.). Another Irish-owned "Hannah" was wrecked by an iceberg a year earlier. During the 1840s ten more ships of the same name carried cargo across the Atlantic, to Australia, too India and the Far East, occasionally across the Pacific or busying between countless European ports. This tiny "Hannah" first appeared in Lloyd's Register of Shipping, numbered 4832, described as a Limerick Coaster. Built in 1824, she was originally a small brig of 132 tons with just two masts. A sound, profitable workhorse, she initially ferried cargo around the Irish ports and occasionally to London or Liverpool, Bristol, Newport or Glasgow, and even to the closest of the French ports. These round trips of 200-300 miles rarely lasted more than a week. By the time of the Famine, "Hannah" had more than earned her price when she was bought and rebuilt by John Norris RUSSELL, a Limerick corn merchant. In 1849, "Hannah" was again surveyed and re-registered by Lloyd's. Her survey revealed that she had been transformed from a brig into a barque with the addition in 1838 of a third mast and new topsides, and with large repairs made in 1845 and further small repairs in 1848. Despite having passed her survey, she seemed too fragile for a rough Atlantic crossing. Her crew and passengers must have been very brave and/or desperate. The accommodation below was built with rough planks of timber, nailed and wedged into place; three tiers of bunks on either side of the hold, with a narrow aisle down the middle covered the space of an average room today, if you can imagine! The "Hannah" typically berthed at Limerick on the Shannon, where the waters, 50 miles inland from the ocean, are wide and deep. The ancient city of Limerick was built over a thousand years ago on an island in the river Shannon; later, the city expanded across the river and beyond its five bridges. Limerick was laid under siege at least three times; in 1651, for a year, by CROMWELL's army, again in 1690, following the Battle of the Boyne 150 miles away, and once more in the following year. The siege and war in Ireland ended in October 1691, with the signing of the Treaty of Limerick. When William III broke the promises made in the treaty, Limerick became known as The City of other Violated Treaty. The first article of that treaty guaranteed religious rights to the Catholics of Ireland. One of the Irish signatories, Patrick SARSFIELD, is commemorated by a statue standing proudly in the city, and by one of the Shannon bridges named after him. A general and a hero, he wa! s regarded as the most gallant of Ireland's soldiers, and among the greatest of its patriots. Dying in battle in 1693, he did not live to witness the introduction of the Penal Laws in 1695 - the most savage of which would remain in force until 1780, and only fully repealed in 1829. During the Famine, the quaysides of Limerick were daily lined with rich produce for export from farms lying in the most fertile stretch of land in Ireland, known as the Golden Vale. Pork, butter, oats, eggs, sides of ham and beef, ploughs, scythes and farming implements, bales of linen and wool were stacked on the quayside before loaded and sent to English markets. A Limerick merchant and ship owner, Francis SPAIGHT, recorded the exports flowing through the port from June 1846 to May 1847. In the Golden Vale, even the peasants enjoyed roasting the fruit of the breadnut trees by the river. Nourishing also was the turnip, and the turnip cake invented in the Golden Vale by Eyre LLOYD. His successful recipe, made from turnips, meal and flour, then barbecued, was published in the "Freeman's Journal" and spread through Ireland. Just to the north of Limerick lay Co. Mayo, hard hit by the Famine, with over 400,000 destitute in 1847, and only 13,000 employed. When the British Parliament appointed a select committee into the horrors of 1847, Francis SPAIGHT, a Limerick merchant and British magistrate, gave evidence. As a farming landlord, with a castle in Tipperary, he had himself transported many of his own tenants in 1847. "I found so great an advantage of getting rid of the pauper population upon my own property that I made every possible exertion to remove them; they were dead weight and prevented any improvement upon the land occupied" -- adding, "I consider the failure of the potato crop to be of the greatest possible value in one respect in enabling us to carry out the emigration system." Three years later his views had no changed, the potato crop continued to fail while food exports continued to flow and many continued to flee Ireland.