Festivities planned for famine ship in Boston

The replica famine ship, the Jeanie Johnston, is due to arrive in Boston on Thursday on the latest leg of its North American tour.

A 10-day visit to the city will begin with a welcome ceremony featuring the mayor of Boston, the lieutenant governor of Massachusetts, and the mayor of Tralee, Co Kerry, from near which the ship set sail for the US last February.

Irish dancers and the tenor Tommy Fleming are also part of the festivities planned.

Large crowds have continued to tour the vessel at its various ports of call, the latest of which was Providence, Rhode Island, from where it departed yesterday after a two-day stay that attracted 3,000 visitors.

Earlier, some 10,000 people toured the ship at Port Jefferson, Long Island, the culmination of its two-week long visit to New York.

The 37-metre, 18-sail vessel is a copy of the one that made 16 voyages to the US and Canada between 1848 and 1855, carrying 2,500 immigrants without the loss of a single passenger.

The replica ship reached the US in April, docking at Palm Beach, Florida, before working its way up the Atlantic coast. After Boston, the vessel will continue northwards, stopping at New Hampshire before a series of visits in Canada between August and October.

The climax of the trip will be a five-day visit to Quebec, where the original ship was built in 1847. Quebec was also the destination for its first voyage with Irish emigrants, who each paid a fare of three pounds and 10 shillings for the journey in 1848.