The Jeanie Johnstonsailed in to Dublin today in what the promoters hope marks the beginning of the end of the controversy surrounding the vessel.
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The 'Jeanie Johnston' moored in Dublin this morning. Photo: Paul Anderson
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The 148-ft ship-cum-floating-museum docked on the River Liffey this morning. One of Captain Tom McCarthy's first duties was to welcome aboard the Lord Mayor of Dublin, Cllr Dermot Lacey, and the chief executive of the Dublin Docklands Development Authority, Mr Peter Coyne.
The ship is a replica of a 19th century Canadian-built vessel that took people fleeing the Great Famine to US cities such as New York and Baltimore and, principally, to the Canadian province of Quebec. She made 16 passages between 1848 and 1858 and the promoters say, unlike many of the 'coffin ships' that set sail during that time, a passenger was never lost to disease or the sea.
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The main mast of the 'Jeanie Johnston'. Photo: Paul Anderson
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The 148-ft, square rigged barque, is 26 ft wide and carries three oak masts with four square sails and single topsails.
Below decks, a flavour of life aboard for the emigrants is depicted in the museum. Visitors can move among figures in poses reflecting the experience of the time. Around and in the 16 double bunks, the figures are depicted nursing babies, comforting the sick and playing music. A soundtrack of a plaintive lament with overdubs of people coughing and babies wailing plays through speakers in the cabins.
The replica Jeannie Johnston, like the vessel that inspired it, is hoping to put a troubled past behind it. The construction cost of the ship has run to €13.6 million - four times the projected the amount.
Kerry Co Co, which oversaw the project, earlier this year were ordered explain to a Government-appointed inquiry, how costs were originally estimated at €2 million.
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A figure depicting a 19th century passenger comforting an ailing woman below decks. Photo: Paul Anderson
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After a series of funding problems and High Court cases that threatened to halt the construction of the vessel, last-minute finance was found to complete the project. The vessel also ran into trouble when a Kerry councillor claimed the timber used for the vessel was illegally felled from a Kerry forest.
Work began in 1998 and was to due for completion by 2000 but the Jeanie Johnstonwas only declared seaworthy in June of this year. It completed its first official voyage today when it sailed up the Liffey and docked at North Wall Quay.
It will remain in port until mid-January and is open to the public from today. It is also available for private functions and can host up to 60 people 'tween decks.
The ship will then sail to Belfast before returning to Fenit, Co Kerry, in February where final preparations for the long-awaited commemorative voyage to North America will begin.