Emotional visit for relative of Alfred D Snow captain
THE great-granddaughter of the captain of the Alfred D Snow – which foundered off the South Wexford coast in 1888 resulting in the deaths of 29 men – visited the village of Ballyhack recently to lay a wreath at the graveyard where many of the men, including her relatives, are buried.
Betsy White, the great grand-daughter of captain William Wiley of the Alfred D Snow whose nephew also perished, attended the wreath laying event at Ballyhack graveyard where a plaque was erected last year to remember the men who died too young.
The Alfred D Snow was wrecked at Broomhill on January 3, 1888. The ship initially grounded under Loftus Hall before sinking near Broomhill. It is not known if the crew were trying to come into the harbour when the vessel sank after a huge swell took them along the coast. The crew of a steamer called The Dauntless tried to rescue the men but to no avail as the vessel had been broken asunder in the storm. 4th, 5th and 6th class pupils at Ballyhack NS researched the three masted, fully rigged ship’s history from when it was made at Samuel Watts’s shipyard in Thomaston, Maine to its many journeys up to when it left San Francisco carrying 46,233 sacks of flour and wheat bound for Liverpool only for its crew to perish in stormy seas near Arthurstown, for a project.
Ballyhack and Arthurstown Resident’s Association, in conjunction with Ballyhack NS, undertook the project in 2016 to commemorate the men who drowned. The ship’s captain, W.H. Wilby’s body was washed ashore in Arthurstown and several of the men were buried in Ballyhack graveyard.
Betsy, from Maine, read a New Ross Standard story last year about how children at Ballyhack NS had erected a plaque in memory of the ship’s crew. She got in contact with New Ross historian Jimmy FitzGibbon and made her first trip to Ireland in early September to visit Ballyhack.
Chairperson of the Ballyhack Arthurstown Residents Committee Lorraine Kehoe said Betsy was deeply moved by the lengths local residents had gone to preserve the memory of the 29 lives lost and by the welcome she received in the area.
‘She came over and asked if we could do something for her so we organised a wreath laying ceremony, which was attended by members of the local RNLI, some of the schoolchildren involved in the project and members of the Ballyhack Arthurstown Residents Committee,’ Ms Kehoe said.
Betsy laid a wreath festooned with an Irish and an American ribbon.
Afterwards the group of 30 people took shelter from the rain at Byrne’s pub in Ballyhack, enjoying refreshments. Betsy presented the residents’ committee with a book about shipbuilding in Johnstown, Maine, which she inscribed, in appreciation of their efforts.