Two of the top baseball teams in the United States are pitching in for the Famine ship replica being built in Tralee, Co Kerry.
A fund-raising game at the 60,000-seat Shea Stadium in New York takes place today between the New York Mets and the San Francisco Giants to help raise the £1 million contribution towards building the Jeanie Johnston replica at the town's old emigration port of Blennerville.
About 30,000 people are expected to attend the game, organised by the former Tanaiste and Labour leader, Mr Dick Spring TD, who became chairman of the Jeanie Johnston US Committee when he went to the back benches after the 1997 general election.
The Jeanie Johnston was noted in the era of the coffin ships for not losing a passenger to disease or the sea in 10 years of voyages from Kerry to New York, Baltimore and Quebec. The ship is featured on a special souvenir programme, sponsored by Chase Manhattan Bank, for the game.
The £4.5 million replica is under construction by a trans-national team of young people, including a special cross-Border FAS scheme drawn from Belfast and Kerry. On completion next year, the ship will re-create the voyages of the original ship.
Funding for the ship, which will return after a year to become a floating Famine museum, has come from FAS, the Department of Arts, Culture, Gaeltacht and the Islands, Shannon Development and Kerry local authorities, and from the Elan Corporation, the first major corporate sponsor.