Forestry to fund ship's US voyage

Coillte is to establish a forest plantation outside New Ross in Co Wexford to replace timbers used in the construction of the Dunbrody - a 176-foot-long replica of the Famine emigrant ships which left Ireland in the 1840s.

The ship, which weighs 458 tonnes, will be the culmination of a two-year, £4 million project, the inspiration of the JFK Trust. It is presently nearing completion at the port of New Ross and is due to sail with a full crew and passengers to Boston in the United States early next year.

To be called the Forest of Dunbrody, the plantation will give the public the opportunity to purchase a tree and have it planted in their name on the site. It will also provide vital funding for the overall Dunbrody project.

A total of 25,000 trees are to be planted, comprising species such as ash, oak, larch and Douglas fir.

The ship will be a reconstruction of the original Dunbrody which operated out of New Ross, in all but its electrical and navigational equipment. Already it has proved to be a tourist attraction. Over 30,000 visitors have witnessed the traditional skills of 19th-century shipbuilding being carried out by a team of 30 FAS trainees and an international team of shipwrights headed by Mr Michael Kennedy of Dunmore East.

One of the trainee shipwrights, Mr James Grennan, is a fourth cousin of the former president of the USA, John Fitzgerald Kennedy. Mr Grennan is also one of the crew of the Dunbrody, which is scheduled to arrive in Boston on the former president's birthday on May 29th.

Coillte, which has already sponsored much of the timber for the project, decided to establish a plantation of the same name as the ship after members of the building crew expressed an interest and as a demonstration of wood as a renewable resource.

The cost of having a tree registered in one's name is £10 and information may be obtained from the JFK Trust on 051 425239.

Following the maiden voyage to Boston the Dunbrody is expected to return to New Ross, where it will become a permanent exhibition on the quayside. Also planned is a sophisticated interpretative exhibition which will contain a computerised database of Irish emigration to the US from 1820 onwards.