Cove- Queenstown- Cobh

This was a wonderful little town, and I felt like no matter how many pictures I took or what setting my camera was on, I couldn't capture the beauty. Especially since it was a beautiful day with no rain, and those days have been few. This is part of Cobh's park by the river. The flowers! O the flowers, the rain keeps them blooming! I may have overdone it with pictures in this post, but there are several here just looking out from the town, and where the Titanic (and many other ships) docked.

The prettiest colors! All the buildings on the waterfront were different colors.

This museum is here to remember the Titanic, but also all of the ships that left during the Famine. The population in Ireland before the famine was eight million, afterwards (while some scholars dispute this) it is agreed by most the population was a mere four million. One and a half million emigrated from Ireland during the Famine, headed for America or Canada, but many died along the way of Cholera or various diseases. Ships that had significant deaths were named 'coffin ships.'
Thousands of prisoners also left from Cobh, headed for Australia, where they would work and eventually be free. These ships were in awful conditions for a long time, and many also died along the way. It's hard to imagine through a blog posting, but after going through this museum (I took longer than most and read every single bit of information!) you (or at least I did) just have goosebumps and tingles from learning first about how much hype and excitement the Titanic had caused (it was to be the ship that only God himself could sink) then hearing that there was somewhat of a competition going on for ships that could travel the fastest, carrying mail and things back and forth from America. Then, you being to feel and imagine the struggles, severity of conditions and hunger that those felt when fleeing the famine. So while some were elated with the speed and size and audacity of the Titanic, several more were just fleeing for their lives, trying to allow their children the chance the live and not starve! The potato crop had failed 4 out of 5 years, and although most families could make it through one year of failure, not four or five. These were people who were eating 15-20 lbs. of potatoes a day-literally living solely off potatoes. There was some shame in the decades following the famine because those who could have helped (mostly the Protestant landowners) didn't because they didn't eat that many potatoes- to some extent, they didn't even realize the severity of it. Also sadly, some thought it was God's divine way of getting rid of those who they thought shouldn't be around anyway. After all this, you can almost feel how loved ones must have felt with news of the Titanic and waiting to hear if their loved ones had made a lifeboat. Sadly, most had not.

Queen Victoria first came to Ireland and named Cove Queenstown, in her honor. In 1920, after Ireland's long struggle for Independence, her own identity, and freedom from Britain, it was reverted to its original name in Irish, Cobh.