Jeanie Johnston

Board the Jeanie Johnston at your earliest convenience. Take a trip back in time, learn about what life was like on board a ship during the Great Famine, and listen to the accounts of those who braved the ordeal of traveling across the ocean.

During the Great Famine in Ireland, one million people left the country. On board the Jeanie Johnston, there were 2,500 people who endured the arduous journey.

The first Jeanie Johnston was constructed in the year 1847 in the province of Quebec in Canada. John Munn, a shipbuilder and expert artisan who was born in Scotland, placed the order for her construction. She was acquired by John Donovan and Sons, a mercantile family operating out of Kerry, so that they could use her in their family enterprise.

She was designed to carry goods like as lumber, rope, molasses, rum, tobacco, tea, textiles, letters, and other items; nevertheless, she ended up conveying a totally different sort of cargo: desperate men, women, and children escaping the Famine. Between the years 1848 and 1855, she made a total of 16 voyages to Canada, transporting immigrants from Tralee and returning with cargo of lumber.

By the year 1858, regulations had begun to prohibit the use of cargo ships for the transportation of passengers. As a result, the Donovan family decided to sell their ship to William Johnson of North Shields in England. After then, the primary use of it was to carry freight once more.

In the year 1858, while the ship was making its way from Hull in England to Québec in Canada, it started taking on water. The ship’s weight increased as a result of the water logging of the lumber that was being transported on deck. As the ship began to gently sink, the crew members went into the rigging and secured themselves to the mast. They were saved by a Dutch ship named the Sophie Elizabeth after an ordeal lasting for nine trying days, and the Jeanie Johnston was allowed to go down with her.

Even after suffering a setback, she preserved her unblemished record of avoidance.

The Jeanie Johnston Tour

The narrative of the hundreds of Irish people who escaped the Great Famine and undertook on a perilous journey in the hope of finding a better life in North America is recounted in the film “The Jeanie Johnston.” Step aboard, and you’ll find yourself whisked back in time, reliving their arduous trip across the ocean alongside them.