Nearly 5,000 slaving expeditions left Liverpool between the 1690s and the closure of the British slave trade in 1807. The scale and duration of the trade was such that it could not fail to affect ports and their hinterlands on both sides of the…

Spherical, I lie in my smooth, round, magenta paper box with faded gold writing signifying my importance. Silent in the darkness, waiting to be handled, touched, caressed, needing someone to remember my story before it is forgotten or rewritten. I…

Ireland’s National Maritime Museum ishoused, aptly enough, in the old Mariners Church of Dún Laoghaire, Dublin Bay. Built in 1837, the churchhasremained in place despite a town that has changed rapidly around it. The church now has pride of place…

The inhabitants of Abercastle, Pembrokeshire were much surprised on Saturday [10th August 1876] by the arrival on their coast of a seaman named Alfred Johnson in an open boat in which he left Gloucester Massachusetts on the 15th June. The boat is…

In our world of instant communications it’s hard to imagine that it once took ten days to send a message from North America to Europe. That was the fastest a ship could go - if the weather was favourable. All this changed in 1858 when the first…