Alongside the Girona, the waters off Northern Ireland’s north coast were the scene of another major maritime tragedy: the loss of the emigrant ship Exmouth.
The Voyage
In 1847, at the height of the Great Famine, the brig Exmouth left Londonderry (Derry) bound for Quebec, carrying Irish emigrants - small farmers and tradesmen with their families, mostly women and children joining husbands and fathers who had already settled in Canada. Though registered for around 165 passengers, the actual number aboard was closer to 240, plus a crew of 11, since children were counted differently in the official registration.
The Wreck
Rather than making the Atlantic crossing, the Exmouth was driven east by a severe gale and wrecked on the island of Islay, off the Scottish coast, on 28 April 1847. Only three crew members survived; 108 bodies were recovered, including 63 children under 14 and 9 infants. A memorial near Sanaigmore Bay on Islay commemorates the dead, inscribed in both English and Irish.
The Account
Much of what’s known comes from the three survivors’ own testimony, printed in contemporary newspapers including the Illustrated London News. Their account describes days of escalating gale- force weather, a fatal navigational error mistaking Islay’s flashing light for a fixed light on Tory Island off the northwest Irish coast, and the ship being driven onto rocks in the early hours of 28 April - a tragedy that unfolded too fast and too violently for most aboard to have any chance of escape.
Legacy
The Exmouth disaster remains one of the most tragic peacetime losses connected to Ireland’s Great Famine emigration, commemorated today through the Islay memorial and a folk song, “The Wreck of the Exmouth,” written by survivor William Roche.
