My Irish adventure: Cobh 2

Finally, the rain stopped and I am ready to continue my story from Cobh...
And I will take you on a journey of the mind, through the history of the place...well, I will at least try.

Cobh. A place people left. Either to look for their fortune in a foreign land like America or Australia, or as this sign says: Cork
The old trainstation has been turned into a museum over the emigration and life in Cork. A museum which also covered the two tragic accidents concerning Titanic's misfortune in 1912 and the sinking of Lusitania in 1915.

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I'll try to let the pictures speak mostly for themselves, but here and there you will see my comments...enjoy...

You feels like you have  been brought back in time...to a time when first class-passengers got to wait in their own room...



A melody to wish the passagers a good journey across the ocean

I this case...not a very pleasant journey....

The population of Ireland decreased sharply in this period as you can see...some say that in 1845 there lived about 8,1 million (!) people on this fair green isle...and then the worst tragedy in Irish history occurred: The Great Famine (An Gorta Mór). More than 1,5 million people either starved to death or died from deceases caused by malnutrition...and people fled the country to seek a better life in America, Canada or anywhere else really. And about 1921 the population had shrunk into about 4 million.....


Dance on board one of the many ships headed for the new world...





People fled the country...




...and this was partly the reason why they fled

 I remember when I started reading about this period. I couldn't stop myself from crying when I read about how people got evicted when they couldn't pay the rent on the small patch of land they had.
Which reminds me of a verse from "Skibbereen":

And  well do I remember the bleak decemberday

the landlord and the sheriff came to drive us all away.

They set my roof on fire with their cursed foreign spleen

and that's another reason why I left old Skibbereen.



no mercy



Can we ever imagine how it must have been?

 

Big, large...largest?

It was cool to be big and strong...but there is nothing like being the FASTEST SHIP ACROSS THE ATLANTIC

The last boat to receive the Blue Riband was "United States" in 1952. She crossed the Atlantic in 3 days, 12 hours and 12 minutes---just some curiosa

Yes, Titanic WAS big....

Farewell---forever



Annie Moore---the first person to pass through Long Island emigration centre in New York



More picture than talk this time, but in my next post you will only get pictures, so please don't complain...

See ye soon