Visiting New Ross and the Dunbrody

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We got a later start today, having had a comfortable sleep in our this great place. After breakfast, Evy and I head up to the club house where we are able to get a internet access as they have wifi throughout the clubhouse. Unfortunately no one has responded to our inquiries for accommodation later in the week. When we get back, we have some lunch before getting in the car and heading off to the town of New Ross.

The great grandfather of JFK came from New Ross, and there are signs indicating the connection as we got closer. The road took us along to the harbour and we quickly found the Dunbrody Famine Ship and parked across the street.

The Dunbrody Famine Ship is a recreation of the type of ship that would have taken immigrants to the new world during the Irish famine in the mid 1800s. The ship is a three masted “Barque” and is quite impressive. Our tour began with a short audio visual presentation, explaining the Irish potato famine and the resulting starvation and immigration. After the film, our tour guide took our small group aboard the ship and gave us a bit of background.

The ship is a replica of a ship built in Quebec for carrying cargo. During the famine, she was refitted to carry up to 300 people to the new world. After this overview, we headed down below decks. Our tickets for the tour are actually replicas of passenger tickets and here, in the steerage area, we could find the actual bunk that our family would have had. Up to ten of people would have shared a single bunk, being allowed up on deck for only as short time each day to cook there food. For a toilet they would all share two buckets.

Further up the ship, we could see where the few first class passengers would have slept. We returned to the steerage area, and we were introduced to Mrs. White, a actor playing a steerage class passenger from the boat. She explain what prompted her and her husband John to leave Ireland. Next we met Mrs. O'Brien, as first class passenger. She explained how her husband saw more opportunity in North America and sold their store in Dublin. Finally we met Matthew, the cook, who told what life on the ship was like as the cook, a member of the crew.

After the tour, we went down to check out the cargo area below this deck, before going topside again where Joshua and Benjamin posed at the helm as well as ringing the ships bell. Back ashore, Joshua posed shaking hands with a statue of John F Kennedy.

We spent a bit of time after this exploring the town before buying food for dinner, along with a CD of Irish Pub Songs. On the way back to our beach place, we saw the sign to the Hook lighthouse, the oldest functioning lighthouse in the world. Though it wasn't particularly well signed, we found our way to the lighthouse.

The sea by the lighthouse had huge waves and Joshua, Benjamin and I spent some time down on the rock ledges exploring and finding fossils in the rocks.
Back up top, we walked a ways and explored a small sea cave before heading to the base of the lighthouse. In the store, Benjamin found two books by one of his favourite authors, Eoin Colfer, who wrote the Artemis Fowl series and is from close to here.

We drove back home listening to our new CD of Irish pub songs with “Black Velvet Band” playing loudly.

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