Wexford's Emigrant Coast

During the 1840s and 1850s, three County Wexford shipping companies maintained non-stop routes across the North Atlantic from Wexford, Ireland's Model County, to Savannah, the oldest city in — and principal port of — Georgia, the so-called Empire State of the South. Two of those enterprises were headquartered in the deep-water port of New Ross on the River Barrow (18 nautical miles from the ocean), which demarcates some of the western border of County Wexford. They were William Graves & Son and Howlett & Company. The third firm was R. M. & R. Allen, based in Wexford Town, a shallow-water ocean port in southeastern County Wexford — and the county seat.

On the Savannah passage, which operated during the autumn and winter, the Allens' vessels included the Brothers, the Wexford, and the Menapia.  The name Menapia is sometimes used for the county of Wexford, a practice traceable to the second-century text Geographia (also known as Cosmographia) by the Greek scholar Claudius Ptolemy.

Technically speaking, Richard, Maurice, and Robert Allens' Menapia was a barque — also spelled bark or barc; and usually abbreviated as Bk. — a type of sailing vessel with at least three masts. From an official registry, we know that the Menapia possessed three masts; had a cargo capacity or "burthen" of over 280 tons; and was built in St. John, New Brunswick (now a part of Canada), in 1841.

It was during the autumn-winter sailing season of 1849-1850 that the Menapia first carried passengers to Savannah. Apparently, the Allens' original intent was a voyage calling not only at Savannah, but also at Charleston, South Carolina. However, in the end, the latter port was not visited. In its edition of Wednesday 14 November 1849, the Wexford Independent, a twice-weekly newspaper, noted that on the previous day, the Menapia had exited the harbor in Wexford Town, bound for Savannah with "nearly one hundred emigrants, mostly of the better class of farmers." The departure was several days later than originally advertised, but delays were common, primarily due to weather.

Upon its — or "her" — arrival In Savannah, the Menapia was handled by Andrew Low and Company, the principal factor or mercantile agent in the city. As regards the return to Ireland: Under the "Went to Sea" category of its Thursday 28 February 1850 "Shipping Intelligence" section, the Savannah Daily Republican newspaper recorded the Menapia's leave-taking as having occurred on the prior Monday (p. 2; col. 7) .   

"finest city"

During the autumn-winter sailing season of 1850-1851, the Menapia again traveled to Savannah, this time under Captain John Hayes. Savannah's Daily Morning News newspaper of Monday 13 January 1851 (p. 2; col. 4) reported that the vessel had "Sld [sailed] from Wexford ... for Savannah" on Monday 16 December 1850.

The notion of "No Irish Need Apply" has become embedded in the popular understanding of Great Hunger emigration, yet most evidence points to the opposite scenario in Savannah. Consider the following anecdote.

While no Wexford-to-Savannah passenger lists have been located, we know the names of some among the emigrants — for example, a young man, McLaughlin, who secured passage on the Menapia voyage that departed from Wexford Town in mid-December 1850.  Under the one-word headline "EMIGRATION," the edition of the Wexford Independent for Saturday 29 March 1851 stated, “We feel great pleasure in giving … extracts of a letter, just received by Mr. McLaughlin of this town [Wexford Town], from his son, who left here ... bound for Savannah, United States” (p. 2, col. 3).

In the piece of correspondence, McLaughlin Junior praises Captain Hayes and Chief Mate Campbell of the Menapia, enthusing that "more humane and kinder-hearted men ... never sailed in charge of human souls." He then turns to the passengers' reception in Savannah, which counts "The Hostess City" as one of its monikers. McLaughlin Junior explains,

"Every passenger was engaged before he left the vessel [Menapia] at wages varying from one to one and quarter dollars for labourers; and tradesmen one and half to two dollars per day. This is the finest city I was ever in."

Above: Pictorial vignettes of Savannah — "the finest city I was ever in," according to McLaughlin Junior in 1851
Founded on 12 February 1733, the city boasts the largest historic district in the United States and the second largest St. Patrick's Day parade in North America. Its port is the US's fourth largest, and its visitor numbers in 2017 reached almost 14 million people, most of them motivated by heritage tourism. {Images © Menapia Research + Education} 

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"sea-gulls ... Saltee Islands"

For County Wexford emigrants, such as McLaughlin Junior, who departed for Savannah from the harbor at Wexford Town, one of the last and most striking images of their native county — and, indeed, native country — would have been the Saltee Islands. There are two islands: Great Saltee (An Sailte Mór) and Little Saltee (An Sailte Beag). Constituting a migratory sea-bird colony of international importance, the Saltees lie in the North Atlantic Ocean, south of the fishing port of Kilmore Quay, County Wexford.

An undersea ridge runs between Little Saltee and the mainland. According to George Griffiths's Chronicles of the County Wexford ... to the Year 1877 (published in Enniscorthy in 1877), on 16 January 1851, a vessel called the Grace, bound from Egypt to Britain, wrecked on the feature, killing two. The Chronicles explains that this "natural causeway" is known as St. Patrick's Bridge because "popular legend" insists it "was commenced by the Saint with a view of continuing it to France" (p. 247). Richard Davis ("R.D.") Webb (1805-1872), a Dublin Quaker, invoked the locale in his 12-stanza poem "The Mountain of Forth" (published in 1867), which concerns not just "[b]road Forth's old Saxon barony," but also other baronies or administrative divisions in County Wexford:

"The Causeway that St. Patrick built, to march across the seas;
The dashing of the wild waves against the wild Saltees." 

McLaughlin Junior's 1851 letter to his father indicates that, on the push westward across the ocean, the Menapia all but took, as a companion, a flock of gulls from the Saltees. Perhaps more than a tinge of homesickness is present in his recollection,

"We had the sea-gulls with us from the time we left the Saltee Islands, until we made near the Gulf of Mexico."

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