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• 1 media/Mast of ship.jpg media/Mountains background.jpg media/Mast of ship.jpg 2016-02-17T12:49:04-08:00 The Last Resort 12 plain 2016-03-07T13:46:31-08:00 “Flanked by Skibbereen and Grosse Ile at either end of the voyage, the ‘’ stands as the central panel of the famine triptych, depicting bondage and fever in the steerage, wailing children and mothers’ pleas from the darkness below decks, heartless captains and brutal crews, shipwreck, pestilence, and burial at sea. In its own smaller scale, the memory of the emigrant steerage has long been held, like the slaves ‘middle passage’ and the trains of the Holocaust, as an icon in Ireland’s oppression”
  - Robert Scally (qtd in O’Grada 105-106).
   
  After years of oppression from the British government and ultimately a full-fledged famine, a large part of the Irish population chose to emigrate from Ireland in a final attempt to save themselves and their family. Conditions at home were unlivable, and therefore they chose to embark on a dangerous sailing to North America, Australia, or England. However, they were not prepared for the despicable conditions on the coffin ships or the threat of famine diseases wherever they went. This section covers emigration, coffin ships, and the destinations to which the coffin ships would journey to.