On this day in 1848, one of the most tragic events of the Great Famine occurred when 72 people fleeing the Famine suffocated in a small raft cabin on the paddle steamer, Londonderry.
The Londonderry, which was travelling between Sligo and Liverpool after setting off in late November, took shelter in Derry harbour. When the covers were removed from the hold, it was discovered that men, women and children had tragically died while fleeing the ravages of the famine. The majority of the passengers were impoverished farmers fleeing from Mayo and Sligo, the counties hit hardest by the Famine, and their families.
The passengers, totalling around 180 – mostly in steerage – along with 26 crew, were onboard the paddle-steamer, belonging to the North-West of Ireland Steam Packet Company, which was managed by a largely Scottish crew. It was travelling on its regular route between Sligo and Liverpool, with the bulk of its passengers set to sail onwards from Liverpool to North America.
While it was approaching Derry on the first leg of its journey to Liverpool, a sudden storm occurred, which prompted the Captain, Alexander Johnstone, to order the crew to force all passengers onboard into a small aft cabin, which measured, at most, roughly 18 feet in length and 12 feet wide. This meant more than 170 men, women and children were enclosed into a tiny space. The situation became more severe when the only ventilation was covered with a tarpaulin to make sure the water did not enter the cabin.
Soon, passengers in their dozens, struggling to breathe, began to suffocate. After some time, one passenger was able to escape and informed the first mate that the steerage passengers were dying because they could not get air.
A reporter from the Belfast Newsletter described in acute, harrowing detail what the crew found when the cabin door was opened – a “frightful mass of agony and death”.
“There lay, in heaps, the living, the dying, and the dead, one frightful mass of mingled agony and death. Men, women, and children, were huddled together, blackened with suffocation, distorted by convulsions, bruised and bleeding from the desperate struggle for existence which preceded the moment when exhausted nature resigned the strife”.
31 women, 18 children, and 23 men perished in the most appalling circumstances. The tragedy gave way to rumours when the steamer pulled into Derry harbour, with a report stating that a large number of passengers had been butchered by robbers. It was rumoured that the band of robbers plundered the emigrants, and that one of the worst, most terrifying massacres on record had taken place onboard.
Authorities initially suspected criminality in the unthinkable tragedy. The official reporting that emerged regarding the tragedy was that aggressive Irish passengers rioted and ended up killing each other. The truth was evasive for some time, but the circumstances of the tragedy finally came out at an inquest. Those who survived spoke up about what they witnessed that day, and accused the Scottish crew of great cruelty. The captain, defending himself, said he had given orders to his crew for the decks to be cleared for the safety of the passengers.
A local doctor addressed the inquest. Giving evidence, he likened the accommodation provided onboard to the ‘Black Hole of Calcutta’ while other witnesses said that cattle transported from Sligo had been treated with more dignity than the Irish steerage passengers.
Michael Branan, from Sligo, was one survivor of the terrifying incident. The inquest heard from Branan that he had been on deck when one of the crew cursed him and forced him down below into the tiny space. Describing the scene, he said:
“The place was so thronged that, while those at the sides were obliged to sit down, there was no sitting room for those in the centre, and they were moved to and fro with every motion of the vessel”.
At the inquest, a jury convicted the Captain and two mates guilty of manslaughter. The jurors said there was an urgent necessity to introduce “some more effective mode of ventilation in steerage and also affording better accommodation to the poorer class of passengers”.
But this call to steamboat proprietors went unheeded, and there was no remedial legislation to follow.
In April 1996, workmen on a building site in the Waterside area of Derry dug up six coffins close to the site of the former workhouse. They were believed to have dated from the disaster – the remains of some of those killed on the paddle steamer. The Irish Times carried a report detailing how forensic experts in Derry carried out tests on the coffins found by the workmen.
Derry historian Mr Patsy Durnin, told the paper that the remains were likely those who died in the tragedy.
“The remains could be those of former residents of the workhouse. However, it’s more likely that they are those of 72 men, women and children who died on board a paddle steamer, ironically named Londonderry, in 1848 going from Sligo to Liverpool, who suffocated on board during a storm,” he said.
The author of a book on the workhouse explained how the 72 people who died were buried in a mass grave. He said it was time to give the victims an appropriate religious burial.
“The grilles on the deck of the steamer which effectively acted as an air vent were blown off during the storm and the crew put tarpaulin sheets over the holes.
“When the ship pulled into Derry port on December 1st 1848 to shelter from the storm, the people were found to have suffocated and they were buried in a mass grave close to the workhouse.
“It’s been known for some time that a mass grave is in this area. It is now time to re-inter the remains with an appropriate religious ceremony.
“It is also possible that the remains belong to former inmates of the workhouse, and if that’s the case, questions have to be asked why the grave was not marked,” he said.