Cobh and Cork
Outside the Cobh Heritage Center, a sculpture of fifteen year old Annie Moore and her two brothers stands, a symbol of Irish departures. Another Annie Moore stands at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, a symbol of Irish arrivals. The two Annies mark the alpha and the omega of sea journeys. In a broader sense she also represents the struggles that sea travel has imposed upon those who risk their lives in ships.
Cobh has had a long maritime history blessed by a huge protected harbor that rivals Sydney’s. Originally called Cove, this seaport for Cork was renamed Queenstown after a visit by Queen Victoria in 1849. After Irish independence in 1920, the name was changed again but this time to Cobh, the name for this magnificent harbor in the Irish language.
The Titanic’s last port of call was Queenstown before it set out on its fateful and tragic journey towards the New World. At the Cobh Heritage Center on the quayside, a quote in one display underscores the hubris of man, “God himself couldn’t sink this ship.”
Other seafarers suffered from the hostilities of nations rather than challenges of nature. Nearby the Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo in May 1915. The survivors were brought to Queenstown. The comments of townspeople can be heard at the Heritage Center describing the frenzied efforts to safe the living and the grizzly task in coping with the dead.
And others were sent by sea to far away lands because they were criminals or undesirables. For a hundred years British and Irish were sent to Australia to fend as best they could in a strange land and under indescribable conditions. The result is today more than 200 years later a proud and fun loving peoples known the world over as Aussies. Their ancestors’ story is told in “A Fatal Shore,” by Robert Hughes, an excellent account of this century long practice called transportation.
Still others would be challenged by a short but often dangerous sail to the Skelligs off the Ring of Kerry. Up the River Lee in Cork in the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery hangs a large painting called “Skellig Night on South Mall.” It represents a madri-gras type celebration before Lent. Its name comes from the fact that during Lent, marriage was illegal in all places in Ireland except on the Skelligs: Skellig Michael and Little Skellig. The painting shows all of the bawdy antics of those faced with the soon to be imposed rigid Lentan rules. The painting was painted in 1845 by James Beale.
In 1846 after a number of years of failure in the potato harvest in local areas, the failure reached nation wide. The revelry of Skellig Night was doused and more than three million Irish left their homeland forever changing the ethnic nature of places like Boston and New York. These Irish too were forced to endure long, hard voyages at sea in order to survive.
Annie Moore stands as a symbol of the departing Irish and all of the sorrow that entailed but she also stands as a symbol of hope that beyond the sea there will indeed be friendlier shores.
Outside the Cobh Heritage Center, a sculpture of fifteen year old Annie Moore and her two brothers stands, a symbol of Irish departures. Another Annie Moore stands at Ellis Island in New York Harbor, a symbol of Irish arrivals. The two Annies mark the alpha and the omega of sea journeys. In a broader sense she also represents the struggles that sea travel has imposed upon those who risk their lives in ships.
Cobh has had a long maritime history blessed by a huge protected harbor that rivals Sydney’s. Originally called Cove, this seaport for Cork was renamed Queenstown after a visit by Queen Victoria in 1849. After Irish independence in 1920, the name was changed again but this time to Cobh, the name for this magnificent harbor in the Irish language.
The Titanic’s last port of call was Queenstown before it set out on its fateful and tragic journey towards the New World. At the Cobh Heritage Center on the quayside, a quote in one display underscores the hubris of man, “God himself couldn’t sink this ship.”
Other seafarers suffered from the hostilities of nations rather than challenges of nature. Nearby the Lusitania was sunk by a German torpedo in May 1915. The survivors were brought to Queenstown. The comments of townspeople can be heard at the Heritage Center describing the frenzied efforts to safe the living and the grizzly task in coping with the dead.
And others were sent by sea to far away lands because they were criminals or undesirables. For a hundred years British and Irish were sent to Australia to fend as best they could in a strange land and under indescribable conditions. The result is today more than 200 years later a proud and fun loving peoples known the world over as Aussies. Their ancestors’ story is told in “A Fatal Shore,” by Robert Hughes, an excellent account of this century long practice called transportation.
Still others would be challenged by a short but often dangerous sail to the Skelligs off the Ring of Kerry. Up the River Lee in Cork in the Crawford Municipal Art Gallery hangs a large painting called “Skellig Night on South Mall.” It represents a madri-gras type celebration before Lent. Its name comes from the fact that during Lent, marriage was illegal in all places in Ireland except on the Skelligs: Skellig Michael and Little Skellig. The painting shows all of the bawdy antics of those faced with the soon to be imposed rigid Lentan rules. The painting was painted in 1845 by James Beale.
In 1846 after a number of years of failure in the potato harvest in local areas, the failure reached nation wide. The revelry of Skellig Night was doused and more than three million Irish left their homeland forever changing the ethnic nature of places like Boston and New York. These Irish too were forced to endure long, hard voyages at sea in order to survive.
Annie Moore stands as a symbol of the departing Irish and all of the sorrow that entailed but she also stands as a symbol of hope that beyond the sea there will indeed be friendlier shores.
