Shipwreck

Report

Extract from a report by John Lanktree, agent on the Marchioness of Londonderry's estate in County Antrim, sent to Lady Londonderry in December 1848.

In my last years report I had the painful task of recording a period of great trial and difficulty to your tenantry here. To many small farmers it was so ruinous that they abandoned their lands and emigrated to America in the Spring of 1848. It is very sad to write that it was the very smallest number of those who so went away that succeeded. Some from Ballymacaldrack were in the unfortunate Exmouth - which was driven by a storm on the rocky coast of one of the Scottish Isles - went to the bottom - within grasp of land and left not one passenger of hundreds to tell the tale - others chiefly from Drumcrow - after landing safely in America were seized with fever - which raged there in an unprecedented manner and perished ere they found a home. Some while they lay exhausted with sickness were robbed of the scanty supply necessary to enable them to settle and had to struggle back to Ireland.

Generally speaking these thinnings were for good, they enlarged some farms - in the hands of the better labourers than the emigrants had been - and if many more should go away - of which there is prospect - it will be all the better for the estate - for without the potato crop it is quite impossible for small farmers to live and pay rent especially on poor soils.