The brig

Brig

A brig is a sailing vessel with two square-rigged masts. During the Age of Sail, brigs were seen as fast and manoeuvrable and were used as both naval warships and merchant vessels. They were especially popular in the 18th and early 19th centuries...

 Hannah transported emigrants to :Canada during the Irish Famine. She is known for the terrible circumstances of her 1849 shipwreck, in which the captain and two officers left the sinking ship aboard the only lifeboat, leaving passengers and the rest of the crew to fend for themselves.

Sailing career

Hannah was built at Norton, New Brunswick

Norton, New Brunswick

Norton is a Canadian village in Kings County, New Brunswick.It is situated on the Kennebecasis River 55 kilometres northeast of Saint John...

, Canada in 1826 and registered at Maryport

Maryport

Maryport is a town and civil parish within the Allerdale borough of Cumbria, England, in the historic county of Cumberland. It is located on the A596 road north of Workington, and is the southernmost town on the Solway Firth. Maryport railway station is on the Cumbrian Coast Line. The town is in...

 in 1840. She was owned by Samuel Shaw and others. Her captain was John Briggs. She brought emigrants to Canada during the Irish Famine, arriving in Quebec from Sligo

Sligo

Sligo is the county town of County Sligo in Ireland. The town is a borough and has a charter and a town mayor. It is sometimes referred to as a city, and sometimes as a town, and is the second largest urban area in Connacht...

 with passengers in July 1847.

Shipwreck in 1849

Hannah was transporting more Irish emigrants fleeing the famine from Warrenpoint

Warrenpoint

Warrenpoint is a small town in County Down, Northern Ireland. It lies on the northern shore of Carlingford Lough and is separated from the Republic of Ireland by a narrow strait. The town sprang up within the townland of Ringmackilroy...

 and Newry

Newry

Newry is a city in Northern Ireland. The River Clanrye, which runs through the city, formed the historic border between County Armagh and County Down. It is from Belfast and from Dublin. Newry had a population of 27,433 at the 2001 Census, while Newry and Mourne Council Area had a population...

 to Quebec City

Quebec City

Quebec , also Québec, Quebec City or Québec City is the capital of the Canadian province of Quebec and is located within the Capitale-Nationale region. It is the second most populous city in Quebec after Montreal, which is about to the southwest...

, when it sank in the Gulf of St. Lawrence on April 29, 1849, resulting in, as well as can be ascertained, 49 deaths.

The Hannah set sail from Newry

Newry

Newry is a city in Northern Ireland. The River Clanrye, which runs through the city, formed the historic border between County Armagh and County Down. It is from Belfast and from Dublin. Newry had a population of 27,433 at the 2001 Census, while Newry and Mourne Council Area had a population...

, Ireland on April 3, 1849 with a crew of 12 under its 23-year-old master, Curry Shaw, transporting mainly agricultural labourers and their families. The exact number of passengers is difficult to determine as the ship's list was lost, but it was around 180. According to the documentary Famine and Shipwreck, An Irish Odyssey, ship's doctor William Graham later accused Shaw of several times slipping into the bunks of unmarried young women during the voyage.

The ship encountered "heavy winds, and a quantity of floating ice" on April 27. At 4 am on the night of April 29, the Hannah struck a "reef of ice" which punched a hole in the hull.

When they found that there was no hope of saving the ship, Shaw ordered the ship's carpenter to hammer shut the after hatch, trapping the passengers below, but another seaman wrenched it open. Shaw and his first and second officers then fled in the only lifeboat

Lifeboat (shipboard)

A lifeboat is a small, rigid or inflatable watercraft carried for emergency evacuation in the event of a disaster aboard ship. In the military, a lifeboat may be referred to as a whaleboat, dinghy, or gig. The ship's tenders of cruise ships often double as lifeboats. Recreational sailors sometimes...

. Dr. Graham asserted that he swam after them, but was held at bay by Shaw swinging a cutlass

Cutlass

A cutlass is a short, broad sabre or slashing sword, with a straight or slightly curved blade sharpened on the cutting edge, and a hilt often featuring a solid cupped or basket shaped guard...

.

The remaining crewmen helped the passengers onto an ice floe next to the bow. The ship sank in 40 minutes. A strong gale was blowing, and there was sleet. Some went down with the Hannah, others slipped and fell into the water, while some who did make it safely to the ice later perished from the cold. Ann McGinn (or McGenn) found and gathered together her six children, only to have them all perish. John Murphy left his twin boys on the ice to search for his infant daughter. Miraculously, not only did he find her, but she survived being immersed in the frigid water. Sadly, however, the ice holding his boys drifted away. In all, 49 were ascertained to have died.

The barque

Barque

A barque, barc, or bark is a type of sailing vessel with three or more masts.- History of the term :The word barque appears to have come from the Greek word baris, a term for an Egyptian boat. This entered Latin as barca, which gave rise to the Italian barca, Spanish barco, and the French barge and...

 Nicaragua, under the command of Captain William Marshall, appeared the next day and picked up either 127 or 129 survivors. The Guardian of June 11, 1849 reported 49 dead and 127 rescued, a total of 176 – "the total number supposed to be embarked", but this may exclude the three officers who abandoned ship. The same article also lists 159 passengers and an unspecified number of daughters of an Ann Lennox. Captain Marshall compiled a slightly different list that includes ten passengers not found on the Guardians tally and omits four that are. Marshall later transferred a number of survivors to other ships: 28 to the barque Broom, 17 to the barque Lord Byron, 22 to the barque Aldebaran, and 20 to the Port of Glasgow. He arrived in Quebec City with the remainder on May 10 or 14. Dr. Graham later died in a Quebec hospital.

Shaw and the other two officers were rescued by the Margaret Pollock and reached Quebec. The Ballina

Ballina, County Mayo

Ballina is a large town in north County Mayo in Ireland. It lies at the mouth of the River Moy near Killala Bay, in the Moy valley and Parish of Kilmoremoy, with the Ox Mountain range to the east and the Nephin Beg mountains to the west...

 Chronicle reported that a charge was laid against the three "of their being guilty of one of the most revolting acts of inhumanity that can be conceived." However, according to Famine and Shipwreck, An Irish Odyssey, Shaw successfully defended himself by casting doubt on the testimony of Graham and others, and escaped punishment.

Documentary films

A Northern Ireland documentary titled The Ice Emigrants deals with the tragedy and aired on the BBC

BBC

The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...

 in February 2011. Journalist Brian McKenna

Brian McKenna

Brian McKenna is an award winning Canadian documentary filmmaker.He has been a frequent collaborator with his brother Terence McKenna, also an award winning filmmaker, in particular on The Valour and the Horror, a film about strategic bombing during World War 2.-References:...

 has produced another documentary of the incident called Famine and Shipwreck, An Irish Odyssey, which was broadcast on March 17, 2011 on CBC Television

CBC Television

CBC Television is a Canadian television network owned by the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, the national public broadcaster.Although the CBC is supported by public funding, the television network supplements this funding with commercial advertising revenue, in contrast to CBC Radio which are...

.