The Coffin Ship
eBook - ePub

The Coffin Ship

Life and Death at Sea during the Great Irish Famine

  1. English
  2. ePUB (mobile friendly)
  3. Available on iOS & Android
eBook - ePub

The Coffin Ship

Life and Death at Sea during the Great Irish Famine

About this book

Choice Outstanding Academic Title 2022

Honorable Mention, Theodore Saloutos Book Award, given by the Immigration and Ethnic History Society

A vivid, new portrait of Irish migration through the letters and diaries of those who fled their homeland during the Great Famine

The standard story of the exodus during Ireland's Great Famine is one of tired clichés, half-truths, and dry statistics. In The Coffin Ship, a groundbreaking work of transnational history, Cian T. McMahon offers a vibrant, fresh perspective on an oft-ignored but vital component of the migration experience: the journey itself.

Between 1845 and 1855, over two million people fled Ireland to escape the Great Famine and begin new lives abroad. The so-called "coffin ships" they embarked on have since become infamous icons of nineteenth-century migration. The crews were brutal, the captains were heartless, and the weather was ferocious. Yet the personal experiences of the emigrants aboard these vessels offer us a much more complex understanding of this pivotal moment in modern history. Based on archival research on three continents and written in clear, crisp prose, The Coffin Ship analyzes the emigrants' own letters and diaries to unpack the dynamic social networks that the Irish built while voyaging overseas. At every stage of the journey—including the treacherous weeks at sea—these migrants created new threads in the worldwide web of the Irish diaspora.

Colored by the long-lost voices of the emigrants themselves, this is an original portrait of a process that left a lasting mark on Irish life at home and abroad. An indispensable read, The Coffin Ship makes an ambitious argument for placing the sailing ship alongside the tenement and the factory floor as a central, dynamic element of migration history.

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Yes, you can access The Coffin Ship by Cian T. McMahon in PDF and/or ePUB format, as well as other popular books in History & Irish History. We have over one million books available in our catalogue for you to explore.

Information

Publisher
NYU Press
Year
2021
Print ISBN
9781479820535
eBook ISBN
9781479808793
Topic
History
Index
History

Table of contents

  1. Cover
  2. Title Page
  3. Copyright Page
  4. Dedication
  5. Contents
  6. Introduction
  7. 1. Preparation
  8. 2. Embarkation
  9. 3. Life
  10. 4. Death
  11. 5. Arrival
  12. Conclusion
  13. Acknowledgments
  14. Essay on Sources and Methodology
  15. Abbreviations
  16. Notes
  17. Bibliography
  18. Index
  19. About the Author