Cobh is a small town close to Cork. It has a particularly deep harbour which has given Cobh its special place in history, a place associated with great tragedy. Failures of the Irish potato crop to blight between 1845 and 1850 produced a terrible famine. This led to mass emigration, mostly to North America. 1.5 million desperate people left home and family behind during this six year period. The century after the famine struck, saw over six million Irish people emigrating, 2.5 million of them leaving from Cobh. During the first half of the 19th century, 40,000 Irish convicts were deported to Australia from Cobh as well. Huge numbers perished at sea, from storm and disease.
Cobh's next brush with tragedy was in 1912, when the Titanic stopped by to collect the last passengers to embark on its first and last Atlantic crossing. Then, Cobh was known as Queenstown, newly named following a visit by Queen Victoria. Prior to that, it had been known as Cove, the English spelling of Cobh. The final name change took place in 1920. 123 passengers embarked at Queenstown, taking the total on board to 2206, including crew and passengers. next stop was the iceberg.
Three years later, a German U-boat torpedoed the Lusitania, a cruise ship carrying 1959 people, close to Cobh. 761 survived and were transferred to Cobh's hospitals. The dead that were recovered are buried in Cobh's cemeteries. There's the excellent Queenstown Heritage Centre in Cobh which is well worth a visit if you're anywhere near the Cork area. Added bonus for us is that son, Edward lives temporarily (with Karen and little Ffion) just across the water at Rochestown, and there's a great little ferry to take us over. With such a tragic history, its not surprising that Cork gave birth to the fearsome spirit that is Roy Keane,who began his brilliant playing career with Cobh Ramblers.
4 comments:
You will be pleased to know that the new Fastnet Swansea-Cork ferry - the "Julia" - will begin operation in April 2010 (see my blog entry). You can see it berthed there.
Well come back with some Irish in you! To fight with! Roll on the election.
Funny thing here, the Obama 'team' is already blaming the Democratic candidate ahead of the Virginia (VA) governorship election - the Democratic candidate is 10 or 11 points down. In NJ the unthinkable might happen, the Democratic incumbent might get kicked out. If this happens that will be much harder for team Obama to brush off.
Obama's poll ratings have fallen so deeply and so fast one has to go back several presidents to see such fast falls. People are waking up to the awful Obama policies - his team are Marxist - left of center/centre, and are very much set in the Chicago machine politics mode which most Americans find abhorrent (including many Chicagoans of which I still count myself as one as I was an Illinois resident and lived/studied and worked in Chicago for some five years on entering the USA with a GC).
I'm not actually a republican, I'm a socialist, but I don't see why destroying the small business sector which Obama is doing right now (his flowery words about how important the American small business sector is for job creation are just that: flowery words) ... Obama neither understands nor cares about small businesses. His policies are killing small businesses in America, the backbone of America.
I am wondering if Obama is doing this on purpose - whether he is adopting the boiling frog model, wherein the water is heated up in stages fooling the frog that doesn't try to jump out until it's too late.
Obama wants the US economy to fail, his team is against free enterprise, they want a government planned economy on the old Soviet model, and they would like to lock up those that disagree. Since under the US Constitution the government can't lock people up absent a full declaration of an emergency - Obama wants to create such an emergency where the public begs for a government take over of everything. It is frightening - the USA is moving towards a single party state under Obama, and then it will be the world under Obama.
Sound the Alarm.
I once watched England play Ireland in the 6Nations while making a BBC programme in lovely Cobe for BBC Radio Wales. The tiny bar was crammed full of elderly locals with little or no interest in rugby and around 30 US Boston Police Officers from the Boston Police Band in kilts... a good time was had by all. Fond memories... though a terrible programme. Too much guinness at every turn unfortunately.... hence annonymity!
Alan - My son, who works in Cork cannot wait for it to begin. He thought it was March 1st.
Scaltu - I see that the US has emerged from recession. Only the UK left now with a shrinking economy.
Anon - surprised there was no interest in rugby. There are signatures of Munster players on balls and shirts all over the place.
Post a Comment