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Archiver > Scotch-Irish > 2003-01 > 1041817752


From: "Linda Merle" <>
Subject: [Scotch-Irish] FWD: Famine ship prepares for Belfast docking
Date: Sun, 5 Jan 2003 17:50:21 -0800


---------- Original Message ----------------------------------
From: "malinda" <>
Date: Sun, 29 Dec 2002 00:07:40 -0700

Famine ship prepares for Belfast docking
Floating museum to open hatch on past
By Staff Reporter

A REPLICA famine ship part built in the Republic by young people from
Northern
Ireland will be in Belfast early next year.

The Jeanie Johnston docked in the Republic's capital amid a fanfare earlier
this week.

But Captain Tom McCarthy said the ship would sail to Belfast in mid-January
and then begin a voyage to the US in mid-February.

The expensive replica 19th century sailing barque is currently docked at
Dublin's River Liffey North Wall.

The vessel is unique among the world's tall ships because it doubles as a
sailing training ship and a living history museum documenting the Famine.
Designed as an ocean-going vessel, the Jeanie Johnson is primarily a sail
training ship - but when docked it transforms into a living history museum
where visitors can experience daily life aboard an Irish Famine ship.
Some 200 young sailing enthusiasts from both north and south have worked
together on the training ship.

To date, the Jeanie Johnston project has cost some 13.66m euro - far higher
than the original budget.

The ship has cost approximately seven times its valuation and most of the
project finance came from state agencies.

Four years after the ambitious project began, the Jeanie Johnston finally
left
Fenit Harbour, Co Kerry, for its maiden voyage in April - two years behind
schedule.

Losses of 3.8m euro incurred by both Tralee Town Council and Kerry County
Council have been converted into deferred shares in the ship. The entire
cost
was supposed to be just 5.7m euro, including 2.5m euro in various grants.

When the original Jeanie Johnston criss-crossed the Atlantic in the years
after
the Famine, filled with desperate Irish people fleeing to a new life in
America, her proud boast was that she never lost a passenger to disease or
the
sea.

http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/story.jsp?story=364819


Dave Shirlaw
Editor, Sea Waves Magazine
www.seawaves.com


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