OLDEST IRISH AMERICAN NEWSPAPER IN USA, ESTABLISHED IN 1928
Category: Archive

Mets, Irish gov’t team up to rebuild Famine hip

February 15, 2011

By Staff Reporter

The Irish government and the New York Mets baseball team are among those helping rebuild the “Jeanie Johnston,” one of the most famous “Famine ships,” which carried impoverished Irish to America in the 1840s.

The New York Mets have designated Wednesday, Aug. 5, as Irish Night at Shea Stadium. A portion of the gate receipts that night will go to benefit the rebuilding campaign. Much of the American support for the campaign followed a visit by Dick Spring, former Labor Party leader and current member of Parliament for County Kerry.

The Jeanie Johnston is currently under construction at Blennercille, the old port of Tralee. In 1848, the ship left New York for County Kerry carrying Indian corn, flour, yellow meal and wheat seeds. She returned to Baltimore in the spring of 1849 carrying 200 new immigrants to the U.S. Unlike the infamous “coffin ships,” Jeanie Johnston never lost a passenger.

The reconstructed ship is being put together by young Irish from both sides of the border under the supervision of professional Irish, Canadian and American shipwrights. The $6.5 million project should take about two years to complete and the ship is due to make her millennium voyage to the U.S. and Canada in May 2000.

For further details on the the project, call Ronald F. Harnisch at (212) 286-0366 or John Bastable at (718) 846-2474.

Follow us on social media

Keep up to date with the latest news with The Irish Echo

Other Articles You Might Like

Sign up to our Daily Newsletter

Click to access the login or register cheese