Cobh & Kinsale, County Cork

December 29, 2017

We drove to the ferry to take us across the channel from Douglas to Cobh (pronounced Cove). Unfortunately, the ferry was not running from Chistmas to New Years, so we drove around. About 1/2 hour later we were on the other side of the channel, which looks to be about 250 yards from where we had tried to board the ferry.

We went to the Irish Emigrant Heritage Center at the old Cobh train/ship boarding station. Two of my grandparents emigrated from here in 1921 (they met later in Boston). Before leaving on a ship, the family and friends of the emigrants would often gather in Queenstown (as Cobh was known until 1922) for an "American Wake," as they never expected to see each other again after the emigrés left for America.

Cobh was the Titanic's final port of call before its rendezvous with an Iceberg southeast of Newfoundland in 1912. The Titanic exhibition included a note in a bottle recovered on the Irish coast that was thrown overboard by Jeremiah Burke (1), one of the victims of the Titanic sinking.

My father (who was born in the US) lived in Ireland for a little over a year beginning in 1938. When World War 2 broke out in September, 1939 the family returned to the U.S. At the Heritage Center, there is a picture of a ship leaving Cobh in 1939 that was chartered by the American government to bring U.S. citizens home from war-time Europe. My father (then 12 years old) was probably on the ship.

We then proceeded to a sea-side town called Kinsale for dinner. The Ocean Liner Lusitania was torpedoed by a German U -Boat off Kinsale Head in 1917. The loss of American lives in this sinking was a major contributing factor to the U.S. entry into the First World War.

(1) Coincidentally, this was the name of the high school in Boston where my aunt (from the other side of the family) taught for many years. 

The ship Acadia leaving Cobh to repatriate Americans living in Ireland upon the outbreak of war in 1939. My father was probably on board

Kinsale