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© Copyright Kerry McCoy
© Copyright Kerry McCoy

Farewell, Ireland

Farewell-Ireland.jpg

It is a little after 5:00 P.M. ship's time on April 11th, 1912. RMS Titanic, the world's largest and most luxurious transatlantic liner, has just passed Fastnet Rock and its 1904 lighthouse as she speeds out into the open Atlantic. A few hours earlier, she had left Queenstown - her last port of call before heading for New York. Queenstown is a more recent stop on the White Star Line's express transatlantic passenger service, having been added as a scheduled westbound stop in 1909.

Fastnet Rock marks the southernmost point of Ireland, and this is the last that many Irish immigrants would see of their homeland as they set out in search of a new and more promising life in the New World. They had bid their families farewell and travelled by horse-drawn carts and by train to Queenstown, where they would board the "Ship of Dreams" bound for America. In this particular case, this is the last that 1,496 men, women, and children will see of land in mortality.

Among these brave, stalwart immigrants were those known as the Addergoole 14, a small group of close friends and family members from Laherdane, a small village in the Addergoole parish in County Mayo. They all boarded Titanic as third class passengers and experienced food and accommodations greater than they could ever have imagined at home. Tragically, only three of them would survive the sinking.

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