Wexford-Savannah:
Almost 180 Years of Friendship

Beginnings (Part 1): Trade

Savannah: America’s Most Wexford City

The famously beautiful river port of Savannah, Georgia, is home to the second largest — and the best (!) — St. Patrick’s Day Parade in North America. Why? A big part of the answer lies in the following fact: According to the United States federal census of 1860, over 63% of Savannah’s foreign-born residents were natives of the Emerald Isle. The next most represented nationalities were Germans (16.7%), English (8.4%), and Scots (3.4%).

Another way of expressing the data is to recognize that in 1860, Irish-born individuals accounted for 14% of Savannah’s total — and almost one quarter of its white — population.

In respect to the Irish, a significant contrast exists between the 1840 and 1860 censuses. During the five-year period beginning in 1848, Savannah’s Irish-born population doubled. It’s highly arresting to note that 56.1% of the “prime time” newcomers hailed from just one of Ireland’s 32 traditional counties: Wexford, known as the Model County. Committing to approximately 40 days at sea, they journeyed to Savannah, the so-called Hostess City, because they could — and easily so (as we shall see).

The Initial Wexford-Savannah Axis

In late 1845, a substantial merchant-shipping company, Graves & Son, of the river port of New Ross in western County Wexford, expanded its already far-reaching web of routes by dispatching a brand-new barque (or three-masted vessel), the Dunbrody, to Savannah on its maiden commercial voyage. The captain, William Baldwin, oversaw a cargo of ballast stone, always welcome as a building material in sand-rich, stone-poor Coastal Georgia. The cobbles on Savannah’s River Street may well include Wexford ballast!

Facilitated by Andrew Low & Co., Savannah’s leading factor (or mercantile intermediary), the Dunbrody docked at a wharf alongside River Street. There, it sold the ballast stone before taking on, for delivery in Ireland, pitch pine and oak that had been harvested in the nearby Ogeechee river-basin and floated downriver to Savannah.

Reflecting on the overall voyage, we can assert that Wexford ballast stone and Coastal Georgia timber — two simple products carried by the Dunbrody during the 1845-1846 fall-winter sailing season (and also during the 1846-1847 season) — constituted the start of a region-to-region Atlantic trading relationship, one from whose decade of success the present-day TradeBridge (discussed below) takes its inspiration.

As the link strengthened, Wexford vessels would introduce to Savannah a variety of Southeast Ireland goods, such as the following products manufactured in the city of Waterford: mantlepieces from Waterford Marble Works; ale and porter from Davis, Strangman & Co.; biscuits from W. & R. Jacob (a company that still exists).

In 1996, the John F. Kennedy Trust, a grass-roots community entity in New Ross, initiated construction of a full-scale replica of the Dunbrody. That vessel became the centerpiece of the Dunbrody Emigration Experience, which has established itself as a popular, highly respected “edutainment” attraction. Since September 2019, the venue has featured a permanent, award-winning exhibit, Savannah Landing, based on research by undergraduate students from Georgia Southern University’s Honors College and Center for Irish Research and Teaching. (Currently, a reimagining of the exhibit is underway.)

The Graves Family

Savannah constitutes an important element in the story of William Graves & Son, a company that, in addition to operating Ireland-to-Britain routes, dispatched vessels to Québec for timber, Peru for guano, and the Black Sea for grain. The “Son” in the company’s name refers to Anthony Elly Graves, the eldest of William Howard Graves’s four sons. Between 1848 and 1856, the youngest son, James Palmer Graves, resided in Savannah, where he conducted company affairs from an office on Bay Street. Like his father, he was an enthusiastic antiquarian, and (in a move that would not pass muster today) he donated to the museum of the Kilkenny Archaeological Society — Ireland’s oldest such organization — Native American artifacts, namely, “Specimens of Pottery from the Sepulchral Mounds of North America.”

In developing the Savannah link, the second son, Samuel Robert Graves, also played a part, contributing from his headquarters in Liverpool, England, then a leading global port. In one letter, dated Liverpool, March 4, 1848, S.R. Graves informed “W. Graves & Son, New Ross” that one of its vessels, the Lady Bagot, was “expected @ Savannah” and would likely be able to secure there a “Cargo [of] Pitch pine” at a “cost” of $1,937.80.

As suggested by his statue in St. George’s Hall, Liverpool, S.R. Graves gained prominence in his adopted city. His obituary in the January 25, 1873, edition of The Illustrated London News, characterized him as a “merchant and shipowner” in — and a Member of Parliament for — Liverpool. During the 1860-1861 term, he was Liverpool’s Lord Mayor, the first Irishman to hold that office.

 Beginnings (Part 2): Emigration & Integration

The Wexford-Savannah Axis Becomes an Emigration Route

By 1848, the Great Hunger (also known as the potato famine) was at its height, propelling an unprecedented exodus from Ireland. In response to the crisis, the largest global migration event of the nineteenth century, Graves & Son converted the Dunbrody , the Glenlyon, and other inventory into emigrant-carriers that landed in Québec and New York in the summer and Savannah in the winter, particularly the months of December and January.

Following the example of William Graves and his son and business partner, Anthony Elly Graves, another New Ross-based shipping company, Howlett, and a Wexford Town-based one, R., M. & R. Allen (operated by three Quaker brothers), also committed to the Savannah emigration route, which was non-stop across the North Atlantic, skirting the Azores and Bermuda. Naming ticket agents in several County Wexford towns, each of the three companies advertised Savannah in such newspapers as the Wexford Independent (published each Wednesday and Saturday).

Healthy Emigrants

Individuals and families emigrating from New Ross and Wexford Town tended to be relatively healthy, for good soils and a diverse, progressive agricultural economy rendered Wexford less affected than other Irish counties by the potato catastrophe underlying the Great Hunger (1845-1849). While tenant-farming dominated Wexford’s employment scene, some of the male emigrants had manufacturing and construction capabilities. Wexford Town was home to Pierce Iron Works (founded in 1839), and — further broadening the skills-base — the mid-nineteenth-century saw multiple Catholic churches erected across the county in response to Catholic Relief legislation.

As implied by a notice, “Emigration” (pictured below), in the November 14, 1849, edition of the Wexford Independent, the emaciated, diseased famine-victim was not typical of the Savannah-bound Wexfordian. The notice’s characterization of emigrants on R., M., and R. Allen’s Menapia as members of “the better class of farmers” would receive an echo when the vessel arrived in Savannah. In a short commentary in its January 12, 1850, edition, that city’s Daily Republican invoked the phrase, “the better class of Irish peasantry,” when identifying "some valuable mechanics, blacksmiths, carpenters, &c.” among the male passengers. It also observed that the “women” passengers were “decently dressed” and “full of health and spirits.” Using language one might avoid nowadays, the Daily Republican described how, even “from the wharf,” the “[s]tout rosy cheeked girls" among the newcomers readily received offers of employment as domestic servants.

Arrive Alive

Defying the Great Hunger-era commonplace of high-mortality “coffin ships,” the County Wexford vessels prided themselves on an arrive-alive reputation. Emigrants regularly acknowledged caring captains and chief officers. As the image below illustrates, when the Allen company’s barque Brothers docked in Savannah in early December, 1850, the passengers presented a silver cup to Captain Laurence English. It signaled their esteem for his benevolence during the 41-day voyage from Wexford Town. English’s regime contrasts with the scenario presented in Peter D. O'Neill's Famine Irish and the American Radical State (2017): "The rate of [transatlantic transit] deaths in the Famine’s worst year [1847] was 20 percent out of 214,000 Irish emigrants” who departed Ireland for North America.

Integrating into Savannah

It’s probable that, rather than hunger and/or poverty, a particular type of stress caused many Wexford farmers and farm families to emigrate to Savannah. That stress derived from their being tenant farmers compelled to rent their land from — and relinquish much of their output to — colonial landlords. In the decades prior to the Great Hunger, tenants’ rights organizations were common across County Wexford, and the land struggle amplified in the second half of the nineteenth century, especially after the founding, in 1879, of the Irish National Land League.

An immigrant from rural County Wexford, the self-made iron-industrialist WIlliam Kehoe (further discussed below), became treasurer of a Savannah branch of the league, with P.J. O’Connor serving as vice president. The Savannah-born son of Wexford-born parents, O’Connor earned a law degree from Georgetown University in Washington, DC, an opportunity made possible by the success of his blacksmith father’s business: Daniel O’Connor, Carriage Works, West Broad Street, Savannah.

In the Wexford Independent and elsewhere, “Emigration to Savannah” advertisements by Graves & Son frequently highlighted the affordability and fertility of land in and near Georgia, all but tantalizing the reader with the possibility of outright ownership of a farm. Despite that vision, however, most who sailed from County Wexford quickly committed to urban jobs and communities once they arrived in Savannah, an economically vibrant port and rail-hub. Three of the city’s neighborhoods absorbed them: Yamacraw and Frogtown on the westside; Old Fort (which includes Trustees’ Garden) on the eastside.

While evidence exists of a “No Irish Need Apply” attitude in such Northern cities as New York and Boston, the mainly Catholic Wexford immigrants found themselves welcomed in majority-Protestant Savannah, where employment was plentiful in such industries as domestic service and garment-making for women and, for men, carriage-making, blacksmithing, the docks, the railways, building-construction, and iron.

Irish-American Achievement

Some Wexfordians enjoyed notable success. Arriving in 1852 on the Allen company’s Brothers, William Kehoe of Mount Howard — a rural townland (land division) in east-central County Wexford — evolved in Savannah from apprenticing as an ironworker to owning Kehoe’s Iron Works, a 10-acre (4.1-hectare) complex that, by 1916, was the largest marine ironworks on the eastern seaboard of the US, south of the major naval center of Newport News, Virginia. In addition to ship- and rail-related iron, the Kehoe foundry produced much architectural and agricultural iron: staircases; garden and balcony railings; sugarcane presses; cane-syrup kettles; and more.

A Testimonial: “Finest City”

Composed in early 1851 by a young man named McLaughlin, a letter conveys a sense that emigrants from Wexford could reasonably expect safe passage to — and ready acceptance in — Savannah. Addressing his Wexford Town-based father, McLaughlin reflected on his recent voyage aboard the Menapia, a barque operated by the Allen company. Of the captain and first mate, McLaughlin declared, “[M]ore humane and kinder-hearted men … never sailed in charge of human souls.” As to launching a new life in Savannah, he reported, "Every passenger was engaged before he left the vessel at wages varying from one to one and [a] quarter dollars for labourers; and tradesmen one and [a] half to two dollars per day. This is the finest city I was ever in."

Continuations (Part 1): Higher Education 

A European Campus, Yielding a Competitive Advantage

A 26,000-student doctoral-research institution with campuses established in 1906 (Statesboro) and 1935 (Savannah), Georgia Southern University determined, in 2019, to honor the remarkable Wexford-Savannah diaspora story by selecting Wexford Town for an important new initiative: a European Learning Center (commonly called “the Wexford Campus”). Several of our sibling institutions in the University System of Georgia have developed successful European centers. For example: the University of Georgia in Oxford, England; Georgia Tech in Metz, France; and Kennesaw State University in Montepulciano, Italy.

Georgia Southern, the Eagle Nation, is proud to be the first US public university to establish a bricks-and-mortar presence in Ireland. All four of the other US universities who’ve made a similar investment are private institutions: Boston College, Champlain College, Duquense University, and the University of Notre Dame. Certainly, Georgia Southern is in good company!

Year round, Georgia Southern’s Wexford campus provides undergraduate and graduate students with superb buildings in which to study and live. But just as important, it also delivers individual and small-group educational experiences outside the classroom walls, with an emphasis on acquiring practical knowledge and skills.

While in Wexford, some of our students have worked in a clean room, learning how to make leading-edge medical devices. Others have contributed to archeological and conservation efforts at a medieval Norman tower-house. Multiple exciting examples of résumé-enhancing field experiences could be cited. Committed to adding value to each student’s time in Ireland, the team advancing the Wexford Campus has forged community, professional, and university partnerships in Southeast Ireland and Dublin. These results-yielding collaborations span a range of disciplines: business, criminal justice, education, engineering, nursing, public health, the arts, and more.

Life-Enhancing Opportunities & a Program for Growth

Whether taking classes, conducting research, or fulfilling internships, Wexford-based Georgia Southern students benefit from interacting with Ireland’s advanced economy, its world-competitive educational sector, and its compelling culture. Those opportunities can be life-changing for participants, especially given that 37% of our student body is first-generation college; 27% is African American; 7% is Hispanic; and (compared to similar universities) a disproportionately large coterie is veteran military or military-adjacent. University System of Georgia data indicate that 42% of Georgia Southern students receive Pell, the federal grant scheme for those “who demonstrate exceptional financial need.”

To get the Wexford Campus from dream to reality for many of our talented, hardworking students, philanthropic monies have been critical. We invite you to join other generous donors so we can support more high-value learning in Ireland by Georgia Southern students, a significant number of whom have never traveled on a plane or possessed a passport. To discuss how you’d like to see your contribution used, please contact Howard Keeley, who directs Georgia Southern’s Wexford Campus Initiative: irish@georgiasouthern.edu; +1-912-478-8424.

Continuations (Part 2): More Trade

Reviving a 180-Year-Old Link

There is much to celebrate about the revival of the Wexford-Savannah Axis, whose origins go back almost 180 years. Encouraged by the establishment of Georgia Southern University’s Wexford Campus, a team of like-minded individuals and entities launched TradeBridge. The simple goal was to promote transatlantic trade and investment between Wexford and Savannah, following in the spirit exhibited by the Dunbrody’s owners, William Graves & Son, and its captain, William Baldwin when (on the basis of Irish ballast stone and Georgia lumber) they inaugurated the route during the winter of 1845-1846.

The not-for-profit TradeBridge had the following five founding partners, all of whom remain engaged: Wexford County Council’s Economic Development Unit; Wexford Enterprise Center; World Trade Center Savannah (the international arm of the Savannah Economic Development Authority); Visit Savannah; and Georgia Southern University’s Center for Irish Research and Teaching. In its first iteration, the initiative organized trade missions and, in addition, provided both in-person and online educational programs to build a community of business owners and entrepreneurs. The structured approach produced a number of early successes.

 For their support of the Wexford-Savannah Axis research project, we’re grateful to our friends.