Dunbrody Famine Ship is one of the premier tourist attractions in the South East of Ireland. Centred on an authentic reproduction of an 1840’s emigrant vessel, it provides a world-class interpretation of the famine emigrant experience.Incorporating a guided tour, costumed performers and themed exhibitions of the highest quality, ‘The Dunbrody’ provides a unique insight into the bravery and fortitude with which Irish people faced up to a desperate situation.
The original Dunbrody was a three-masted barque built in Quebec in 1845 by Thomas Hamilton Oliver for the Graves family, merchants from New Ross in Wexford. She operated primarily as a cargo vessel, carrying timber and guano to Ireland. She was fitted with bunks and between April to September from 1845 to 1851, she carried passengers on the outward leg to North America. These passengers were people desperate to escape the potato famine in Ireland.
Often 50% of passengers on such ships died on passage (they were known as "coffin ships"). However, the mortality rate on the Dunbrody was exceptionally low, no doubt due to her captains, John Baldwin and his successor John W. Williams, with passengers writing home often praising their dedication. On one passage with 313 passengers, almost twice her normal complement, only 6 died. In 1869, after 24 years of service with the Graves family, she was sold. In 1874, while travelling from Cardiff to Quebec, she ran aground in the Saint Lawrence River. She was bought by a salvage company, repaired and sold again but in 1875 she foundered on the Labrador coast and was lost.