Donal Logue

Donal Logue Instagram – Just arrived in Dublin, looked out my window, and saw two familiar spars that immediately filled me with joy. It was Jeanie.
The Jeanie Johnston became famous during the time of the famine. Unlike many of the “coffin ships” of the era, the Jeanie Johnston made 16 successful trans-Atlantic crossings starting in 1848, and although she sometimes held as many as 240 passengers, no one ever died aboard her.
I feel a special affinity for this (granted) replica of the original ship (which sank in 1855– again, no lives were lost) because the finishing work on her was done in Fenit Harbor, my father’s home village in Kerry. We knew many who worked on the project. My father and I were allowed on the Jeanie Johnston before she was finished and my pops was even offered a spot as a hand on her maiden voyage to the United States. My father wished he could, but had to pass on the opportunity; a difficult decision for a sailor.
A year later, I was walking down the Westside by Battery Park in New York City when I saw a handsome, two sparred ship sailing up the Hudson River. I knew it was the Jeanie Johnston. She had made it safely to the Azores and across the Atlantic, just as she had so many times during the mid-19th Century during the darkest time in Irish History.
#IrishHistory #jeaniejohnstone | Posted on 06/Aug/2022 01:42:14