February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
And in a tribute to the Irish who once poured into America through New York’s symbolic twin portals, the three-masted ship will sail past both Liberty and Ellis Islands.
The ship will then dock at Battery Park City, close to the Irish Hunger Memorial, where it will be open to the public until July 13.
A welcoming ceremony is being organized for the docking time by Tourism Ireland at Battery Park’s North Cove Slip.
The ship will then open to the public for two hours beginning at 4:30 p.m. Admission during this period will be free, but visitors on subsequent days will need to pay $7 per adult or $5 for children under 12 or seniors with $20 family packages also available.
Visiting times from July 4-13 will be from 10:30 a.m. until 6:30 p.m.
After delays in construction and significant cost overruns, the Jeanie Johnston set sail from Ireland on Feb. 16 and made her first North American landfall in April, having reached the coast of Florida.
The ship has been moving up the eastern seaboard since then and after New York will stop at several more U.S. ports before sailing to Canada.
The original Jeanie Johnston carried more than 2,500 Irish immigrants to the United States and Canada from 1848-55.
The ship was unique for its time in that no lives were lost during 16 trans-Atlantic voyages.
The Jeanie Johnston’s arrival in New York coincides with a report commissioned by the Irish government that is critical of cost overruns in the ship’s building phase.
The government stopped funding the project last year when it emerged that the project was more than