Coffin ship

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A coffin ship is the name given to any boat that is worth more to its owners overinsured and sunk than afloat. These were hazardous places to work in the days before effective maritime safety regulation.

The term has also been used to refer to the ships that carried Irish emigrants escaping the effects of the potato famine. These ships, crowded and disease ridden, with poor access to food and water, resulted in the deaths of many people as they crossed the Atlantic. Owners of coffin ships provided as little food, water, and living space as was legally possible — if they obeyed the law at all.

While coffin ships were the cheapest way to cross the Atlantic, often many of the passengers died during the voyage.^{[citation needed]} It was said that sharks could be seen following the ships, because so many bodies were thrown overboard.^{[citation needed]}

The National Famine Monument is at the base of Croagh Patrick in Murrisk, County Mayo, Ireland. It depicts a Coffin Ship with skeletons and bones as rigging. Sculpted by John Behan, it is Ireland's largest bronze sculpture. Coffin Ship was unveiled by then President of Ireland Mary Robinson in 1997 to mark the 150th anniversary of the Irish Famine.

In the Pogues song "Thousands are sailing", the ghost of an Irish immigrant laments, "...on a coffin ship I came / And I never even got so far that they could change my name."

Irish poet Eavan Boland mentions the coffin ships in her poem "In a Bad Light" from the collection In a Time of Violence, and in her memoir Object Lessons: The Life of the Woman and the Poet in Our Time.

Leon Uris also refers to death ships in his novel "Redemption"