Jeanie Johnson
Jeanie Johnston is a replica of a three masted barque that was originally built in Quebec, Canada, in 1847 by the Scottish-born shipbuilder John Munn.
The replica Jeanie Johnston performs a number of functions: an ocean-going sail training vessel at sea and in port converts into a living history museum on 19th century emigration and, in the evenings, is used as a corporate event venue.
The original Jeanie Johnston was bought by Tralee, Co. Kerry-based merchants John Donovan & Sons, as a cargo vessel and traded successfully between Tralee and North America for a number of years. The trading pattern was to bring emigrants from Ireland to North America, and then to bring timber back to Europe.
The ship made a voyage from Co. Kerry to Quebec on 24 April 1848, with 193 emigrants on board, as the effects of the Famine ravaged Ireland. Between 1848 and 1855, the Jeanie Johnston made 16 voyages to North America, sailing to Quebec, Baltimore, and New York. On average, the length of the transatlantic journey was 47 days. The most passengers she ever carried was 254, from Tralee to Quebec on 17 April 1852. To put this number in perspective, the replica ship is only licensed to carry 40 people including crew.
Despite the number of passengers, and the long voyage, no crew or passenger lives were ever lost on board the Jeanie Johnston. This is generally attributed to the captain, James Attridge, not overloading the ship, and the presence of a qualified doctor, Richard Blennerhassett, on board for the passengers. This lack of mortality contrasted sharply with coffin ships that carried many other Irish immigrants.
In 1855, the ship was sold to William Johnson of North Shields in England. In 1858, en route to Quebec from Hull with a cargo of timber, she became waterlogged. The crew climbed into the rigging, and after nine days clinging to their slowly sinking ship, they were rescued by a Dutch ship, the Sophie Elizabeth. Even in her loss, she maintained her perfect safety record.
The project was conceived in the late 1980s, but did not become a reality until November 1993 when a feasibility study was completed.
In May 1995 The Jeanie Johnston (Ireland) Company Ltd. was incorporated. The ship was designed by Fred Walker, former Chief Naval Architect with the National Maritime Museum in Greenwich, England.
The recreation project was modelled closely on that of the 17th century ship, the Batavia and the Matthew in Bristol.
An international team of young people, linking Ireland North and South, the United States, Canada and many other countries, built the replica under the supervision of experienced shipwrights.
The original cost had been projected at £4.265m sterling (~€5.8m) in 1993 and the final cost was just under 14 million Euro in 2002.
The final figure includes the seagoing ship, shipyard, workshops and visitor centre at Blennerville, cost of launch, fit out at Fenit and the cost of training in shipbuilding skills provided by the Foras Áiseanna Saothair ("Training and Employment Authority") to some 50 unemployed young people. The escalation in cost was attributed to the complex nature of the project, the delay in getting the project underway and completed (9 years) and the efforts made to meet an unachievable completion deadline of June 2000.
The cost of the project was borne by the Irish government, Kerry County Council, Tralee Town Council, the European Union, the American Ireland Fund, Shannon Development, Kerry Group, the FÁS, and the Irish Department of the Marine, most of which later agreed to write off their losses.
Over €2m was raised though private fund raising in Ireland and the United States. According to a valuation obtained by Kerry County Council in 2002, the Jeanie was then worth 1.27 million Euro. In 2015, it was valued at 150,000 Euro.
The hull of the ship was built with larch planks on oak frames. The decks were constructed from iroko and Douglas fir, with Douglas fir masts and spars.
To comply with international maritime regulations, some concessions to modernity had to be made. She has two Caterpillar main engines, two Caterpillar generators, bow thruster for manoeuvrability in lakes and rivers and an emergency generator that is located above the waterline in the forward deckhouse. She is fully compliant to the highest standards of modern ocean-going passenger ships, with steel water-tight bulkheads, down-flooding valves, and fire-fighting equipment.
A wooden plaque is mounted on the foremast listing some of the many people involved in the physical building of the ship. Many people gave time, money and support to the project. The reconstruction efforts involved the labour of trainees from different religious and political backgrounds in Northern Ireland's disadvantaged areas who were funded by the International Fund for Ireland. The aim of the fund being to promote economic and social advance and to encourage contact, dialogue and reconciliation between nationalists and unionists throughout Ireland.
When several of the oak frames were in place and planking was being applied, the density of the oak was checked and the flotation levels estimated. These checks revealed that the ship would float higher than anticipated in the water, causing stability problems. To rectify the problem, a steel keel was attached beneath the original oak keel. This is the reason that the Jeanie Johnston draws more water than most ships of her size and cannot enter some ports the original ship would have been able to visit, e.g. Nantucket. However, she has proved to be remarkably stable even in the harshest weather conditions at sea. During her maiden voyage to America in March 2003 she was battered by Force 10 storm in the Bay of Biscay and similarly on the return voyage from Newfoundland in November 2003 and prevailed unscathed.
It was originally planned to launch the ship from her shipyard in Blennerville, but a 19th-century shipwreck was discovered by marine archaeologists while a channel was being dredged.
To preserve the find, on 19 April 2000 the hull of the Jeanie Johnston was hauled to the shore and loaded onto a shallow-draft barge.
There she was fitted with masts and sails, and on 4 May was transported to Fenit, a short distance away.
On 6 May the barge was submerged and the Jeanie Johnston took to the water for the first time. The next day she was officially christened by President of Ireland Mary McAleese.
