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CROSSING THE BOWL OF TEARS
In a frantic attempt to outwit death, nearly two million people fled Ireland. "Many thousands of peasants who could still scrape up the means fled to the sea, as if pursued by wild beasts, and betook themselves to America," wrote Irish patriot John Mitchel. The emigrants boarded vessels so unseaworthy they were called Coffin Ships. So many passengers died at sea that poet John Boyle O'Reilly called the Atlantic Ocean upon which they journeyed "a bowl of tears." |