the sinking of the steamer Queen Victoria February 1853

The Leinster Express of the 12th February 1853 carried the following report ‘Mrs. Walsh, Athy drowned on the sinking of the steamer Queen Victoria in Dublin Bay on a trip from Liverpool to Dublin.’ Mrs. Walsh, whom I have been unable to identify, was survived by her husband when the ship sank. The Queen Victoria was a wooden hull ship powered by two steam engines which was built in Glasgow for the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company just fifteen years earlier. It left Liverpool on the night of 14th February with approximately 100 passengers and as it approached the Irish coast it was met by a heavy snowstorm which reduced visibility. The ship struck Howth Head at about 2.00 a.m. on the 15th February and the Captain, who was a sailor of much experience, not realising the extent of the damage felt that the ship could safely reach the Harbour. The damage to the ship was more extensive than he thought and it quickly began to take in water. The Freeman’s Journal reported ‘The Cabin passengers were in bed and had been wakened by the shock rushed half-dressed upon the deck found the ship fast going down.’ The Queen Victoria sank within fifteen minutes and about one hundred yards south of the Baily Lighthouse. Approximately eighty-three passengers and crew including the ship’s captain went down with the ship. The survivors managed to reach shore in a lifeboat which rescued seventeen passengers while more survivors, including Mrs. Walsh’s husband, were picked up by the crew of the Roscommon which went to the aid of the stricken ship. In my search for the full name and address of the unfortunate Mrs. Walsh, I enlisted the help of Clem Roche who identified three Mrs. Murphys in Athy in the years immediately following the Great Famine. Sarah Murphy, Charlotte Murphy and Anne Murphy were all married in St. Michael’s Church Athy and strangely their husbands all bore the same name Michael Walsh. The search for the victim of the Baily lighthouse tragedy continues. On the day the Queen Victoria sank, the new Jail on the Carlow Road in Athy housed forty-eight prisoners. Drunkenness, particularly among females, was the principal reason for incarceration while a later prison report claimed ‘loose women from the Curragh swelled the prison numbers.’ In the years immediately following the Great Famine, Athy began to adopt the commercial sophistication of an inland market town. Side by side with the unemployed poor of the town was a thriving commercial community while nearby were to be found some of the wealthiest farmers in Leinster. Seven years earlier a directory listed no less than eight blacksmiths with forges in the town and ten boot and shoemakers. Other craftsmen in Athy included a tin plate worker in Duke Street, the same street which was home to James Doyle, a tanner. Eight tailors had businesses in the town’s principal streets, Duke Street and Leinster Street with two tailors operating from Preston’s Gate. That street now known as Offaly Street was also home to a saddler’s shop and it was there that Margaret Langton carried on business as a Dressmaker. Even at a time when book publishing was in its infancy, Athy boasted a book seller in John Lahee of Duke Street while Pawn Brokers, Peter Prendergast and John Rooney both of Duke Street catered for the needs of the town’s poor. Amongst Lahee’s customers must surely have been members of the Mechanics Institute formed the same year as Mrs. Walsh’s death in Dublin Bay. The Mechanics Institute evolved from the earlier established Athy Literary and Scientific Institute which was founded in 1849. It had a reading room in the Town Hall where the English and Irish papers were available to members. 1853 for Athy was a year marked by the tragic drowning of the as yet unidentified local woman. It was also the year the town and its hinterland began to reap the benefits which were expected to accrue to a developing market town. Banking facilities in Athy, which were provided by a branch of the Tipperary Bank since the 1840s, were extended with the opening of a branch of the National Bank in or about 1850. The Hibernian Bank opened its Athy branch in March 1856 following the closure of the Tipperary Bank. The following year the foundation stone of Athy’s Gasworks was laid while the corn exchange in the Market Square opened for business on the 6th October 1857. The settlers town of Athy was emerging in 1853 with confidence from the aftermath of the Great Famine but for one household in Athy the loss of life on the Queen Victoria presage difficult times ahead not just for one family but for an entire community living in the shadows of Whites Castle on the River Barrow.