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Tracing ancestry to shipwreck 0

Pat McCourt, left, of Williamsburg, met up with Alun Evans, great-great-great grandson of William Marshall, the captain of the ship Nicaragua which rescued the sipwrecked passengers of  the Hannah.


WILLIAMSBURG -- Pat McCourt remembers the story he was told repeatedly as a young boy.

It was the story of his great grandparents, Owen and Jane McCourt, who, after surviving a wicked shipwreck, settled in Cornwall.

"I have always been told the story," says McCourt, 65, who resides in Williamsburg. "I'm only two generations away from it happening. It hadn't been forgotten. My father was a storyteller. He would tell this one fairly often."

The story begins in the spring of 1849, when the couple left their two children with an aunt in Ireland and bought passage on a ship -- the Hannah -- headed for Canada.

"The little ship (they boarded) was being used to deliver coal from England to Ireland," explains McCourt. "Then, they cleared it out and fixed it up to carry passengers."

The ship reached the frigid waters of the Gulf of St. Lawrence and was hit with a storm. But then, more disaster struck.

The ship had hit an ice reef in the strait near Cape Ray, off the coast of Newfoundland and was starting to sink.

The 23-year-old captain and his officers abandoned ship and left all of the 180 passengers on board with only one lifeboat.

"The ship sank within 40 minutes," says McCourt. "It was 4 a.m. when it struck ice. People were in the dark. There was a strong gale, and there was sleet. It was just at freezing, more or less."

The people were stuck on the ice for approximately 17 hours. One report has found that 55 people died.

But then, the next day, the survivors were met with respite: the storm let up and the sun came out. A heroic gentleman called William Marshall eventually spotted them, says McCourt. Marshall was commanding the famine ship, the Nicaragua.

"(At first), the crew refused to help and he told them that he was going in with their help or not," says McCourt. "They eventually pitched in."

People couldn't climb on board, so they were lassoed and pulled on board with a rope. The crew search for more survivors in longboats. In the end, 129 people were rescued.

All of the passengers landed in Quebec.

McCourt's great grandparents eventually found their way to Cornwall. McCourt thinks their ultimate destination was either because his great grandmother required medical attention, or because Owen was looking for a job.

"It made them kind of special," says McCourt of his ancestors' ordeal. "It gave them an identity. They've been dead 100-some years, and it gave them an identity, in a sense. It was always sort of incredible. It must have taken an incredible amount of co-operation (in order to survive)."

* * *

But for McCourt, there was still one piece of the puzzle missing from his past.

"No one knew the name of the ship," he says. "I was interested in it."

So he researched with a cousin at the City of Ottawa's Archives.

"It was kind of funny, because the woman at the desk pulled her glasses down, looked over them and said 'that's a needle in a haystack,'" McCourt recalls with a laugh.

After 40 minutes of reading, he found the name of the ship: it was the Hannah.

* * *

A couple of years ago, McCourt received an email from a cousin who lives out west.

Brian McKenna, filmmaker, historian, author and journalist, and Galafilm were looking for descendants of the Hannah.

McCourt contributed to the film "Famine and Shipwreck, an Irish Odyssey." McCourt says he provided information and the family story about his great grandparents.

"I have done research on the story, myself, for years," he says. "I kept digging."

The film focuses on Canadian Tom Murphy and his mother Jane and their journey to discover how their ancestors, Bridget and John Murphy, survived starvation and shipwreck to build a new life in the green fields of Canada, according to a press release. The two head to Ireland where they meet fourth-g e n e rat i o n cousins, Sharon Donnelly and her husband Padraig. They retrace the story of the famine and the horrible conditions their Murphy ancestors endured before and after boarding the Hannah. They sail to the place where the ship sank, and feel the wintry conditions that stranded passengers faced.

The documentary was shot in Ireland, Quebec, Ontario and off the coast of Prince Edward Island, in 2010. It combines passengers' descendants and historians' testimonies, and archives of letters, photographs, documents, newspaper articles, and art.

The documentary is a Galafilm production, produced in association with the CBC and Radio-Canada.

"I was on camera for some of it, but I don't know how much I will be in it," says McCourt. "But it's important we not forget (about the famine). One to two million people starved to death. One to two million people had to leave their homeland to survive."

McCourt says it's important to maintain a link to the past.

"Our history is who we are," he says. "When I was a child going to school, we learned about Champlain... that's my history as a Canadian. That's who I am."

On March 17, the CBC's Doc Zone will air "Famine and Shipwreck, an Irish Odyssey," a film by Brian McKenna.

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