ABOUT US COURSES (Georgia) STUDY IN IRELAND ALUMNI TOUR 2022 WEX-SAV AXIS
The Center for Irish Research and Teaching
An tIonad Taighde agus Teagaisc na hÉireann
Savannah, Georgia
Statesboro, GA
Hinesville, GA
Wexford, Ireland
The Chainies Whale Project
Reconnecting Transatlantic Communities
In recent years, the Wexford-Savannah Axis research project (headquartered at Georgia Southern University, Savannah) has demonstrated that from the late 1840s to the mid-1850s, hundreds of emigrants sailed non-stop to Savannah from Wexford Town and New Ross: two ports in County Wexford in southeast Ireland. During that period, Savannah’s Irish population doubled, with over 56% of the newcomers originating in County Wexford.
Celebrating strong past and present links across the Atlantic, the Chainies Whale Project seeks to create two “sister” mosaic whales: one on the harbor wall in Wexford Town, the largest settlement in (and the administrative seat of) County Wexford; the other in Savannah, which is Georgia’s oldest city and the US’s fourth-largest container port. Due to the dimensions of the wall in Wexford Town, the whale in that location will measure around 8 feet in length; however, the intention is to craft a 16-foot-long whale for Savannah. The Ireland-based element of the project has received full funding, including a “Brightening Air” grant from the Arts Council of Ireland, secured by the Wexford Arts Centre.
The whale mosaics will be made from chainies: pieces of broken pottery. The design combines two compelling nineteenth-century stories, both of which occurred along the east coast of County Wexford. In March 1891, a female blue whale, now known as Hope, became stranded on a sandbar, close to Wexford Town. Just over 34 years earlier, in February 1857, a Savannah-based and -bound sailing ship, the Chattahoochee, had wrecked a little to the south, near Greenore Point and the port of Rosslare. The trading vessel had counted, as part of its cargo, porcelain and pottery, manufactured in The Potteries, also known as Stoke-on-Trent. Those names were given to six towns in the English county of Staffordshire that, collectively, became world-renowned for industrial-scale pottery production, boasting such firms as Copeland, Doulton, Spode, and Wedgwood, to cite just four.
In the case of the Wexford Town whale, which will be completed first, several mosaic wall medallions are planned, in addition to the main feature. They will illuminate the wreck of the Chattahoochee, an event that, thankfully, involved no loss of life among the 27 crew members or their rescuers. The designs for both the whale and the medallions are by Helen McLean, an award-winning mosaic and stained-glass artist based in Wexford Town. No doubt, a set of medallions could also accompany the version of the whale being planned for Savannah.
Cooperating with Helen on the Savannah iteration of the project will be local resident Dr. Pam Reynolds, an accomplished mosaicist, who has exhibited at Savannah’s Jepson Center/Telfair Museums, among other venues. Both Pam and Helen trained at the Mosaic Art School in Ravenna, Italy, which specializes in the ancient tradition of Byzantine-style mosaics. Currently, Pam is completing her MFA at Georgia Southern University, having headed a private dentistry practice for decades before rounding out her dentistry career at Fort Stewart, near Savannah, out of a desire to given back to her country through army service.
Images Copyright Helen McLean 2021
A laser-cut frame, made from stainless steel, encases the mosaic pieces.
Loss of the Chattahoochee
On February 15, 1857, upon the coast of Co. Wexford, the (fully insured) Chattahoochee ran ashore and began taking on water. Ultimately, it broke apart, an outcome that caused it to be written off. The vessel, which was only around a year old, had departed from Liverpool, England — the “second city” of the British empire — with a cargo that consisted of pottery from Stoke-on-Trent in Staffordshire, as well as 3,000 sacks of salt, almost certainly mined in Lancashire and/or Cheshire, England. Its intended destination was its home port: Savannah, Georgia, USA.
From the wrecked Chattahoochee, pieces of broken pottery, known as chainies, washed up on various County Wexford beaches, especially Rosslare Strand, south of Wexford Town. Chaines is a plural form of the noun chainy (also spelled chaynee), a dialect variation of china — that is, porcelain ware. While the singular chainy generally indicated intact pottery, the plural chainies came to mean broken items.
More about the Word Chainy
The narrator of “New Potatoes,” a tale in Samuel Lover’s Legends and Stories of Ireland (1831), compares a certain Dublin street-hawker to “a bull in a chaynee-shop.” The children’s practice of “playing ‘chainies’” — that is, playing “house-keeping with pieces of broken pottery” — receives mention in the original (1897) edition of The Secret Rose, a collection of short stories by William Butler Yeats, the first Irish author to be awarded the Nobel Prize in Literature.
The name Chattahoochee refers to a major river that rises in the Blue Ridge Mountains of northeast Georgia. Flowing towards the Gulf of Mexico, the waterway constitutes the southern half of the border between Georgia and Alabama.
How the Chattahoochee Wrecked
(February 15, 1857)
The February 18, 1857, issue of the Wexford Independent (a twice-weekly newspaper) explained that the Chattahoochee faced “thick” weather after departing from Liverpool. As a consequence, it “ran ashore” near Dundalk, a harbor town just over 50 miles north of Dublin, but the crew managed to right the situation. Later, Captain Mason mistook the Tuskar Lighthouse (1815), 6.8 miles off Wexford’s east coast, for the South Bishop Lighthouse (1839), 5 miles west of St. David’s Head in Wales. Both towers were (and are) painted white. Believing his location to be near Wales, the captain turned the Chattahoochee westwards under full sail, only to soon hit a rock formation, known as Carrig Rocks, that “pierced through the bottom” of the vessel. The accident occurred at 7:30 pm on Sunday, February 15, 1857.
A subsequent issue of the Wexford Independent (March 14, 1857) reported on the sale, “in one lot, at the Broker’s Office, Liverpool,” of the “hull, lower masts, and standing bowsprit” of the Chattahoochee, then still at Carrig Rocks, but unanchored and, thus, liable to being “scattered” into the open sea. The price was “the trifling sum of £100.”
Three Months before the Wreck:
the Chattahoochee in Savannah
According to the March 9, 1857, issue of The Republican, a Savannah daily newspaper, the Chattahoochee cost around $65,000 to build. That sum is likely the equivalent of $1,995,230 in today’s money.
Built in Maine and registered as a “ship” (as opposed to a barque, brig, or schooner), the sailing vessel Chattahoochee operated on the Savannah-Liverpool route. It belonged a consortium of Savannah entrepreneurs, led by John Randolph Wilder (1816-1879), a successful cotton merchant who would later acquire the Mercer House, a John S. Norris-designed mansion on Monterey Square, Savannah. Wilder facilitated the off-loading and re-loading of the Chattahoochee when it was in Savannah. Records from various times identify him as a Savannah alderman (with membership on the municipal finance committee), a director of the Central Railroad and Banking Company eof Georgia, and the Russian consul in Savannah.
Ann Borg, Beachcomber
The Chainies Whale project is possible because of the generosity of Ann Borg, a native and resident of the coastal town of Rosslare, County Wexford. From her youth to the present, Ann has collected thousands of chainies, which she has made available for the creation of the mosaic whales and the accompanying mosaic medallions.
Images Copyright Helen McLean 2021
Hope: Blue Whale
Meitheal
The Irish-language word for a group that assembles, with no expectation of pay (or other reward), to help a neighbor complete a task, such as “saving the hay.”
