An authority on merchant ships of the 19th Century now are we Christmas?

"The transportation of Famine refugees was treated (as was emigration itself) as a business enterprise - a cheap, convenient way of ridding Ireland of its undesirables and unsustainables."

Really? Who was it treated as a business by? Perhaps by ship owners and those importing timber into Great Britain but not by the British Government.

"Some of the ships were custom built, most were hastily adapted from cargo vessels, grain, timber and metal carriers - some had previously been slave carriers - and the accommodation showed that."

I would say that most fell into the category of those hastily adapted as they could be likewise hastily re-adapted to carrying a cargo back from either Canada or America – Ship owners are funny that way they prefer not to have their ships running about the world's seas and oceans in ballast. If the ships were British flagged vessels then very few of them would have ever been slavers by the mid 1800s (Slave Trade Act 1807 prohibited British ships from carrying slaves).

"You only need step on board the Dunbrodie at New Ross or the Jeannie Johnson to confirm this - I think the Dunbrodie has only a couple of cabins - the rest is made up of open bunks closed off by curtains."

And that Christmas had been the bog standard way of creating cabins in Merchant vessels for hundreds of years. If you go onboard HMS Victory your notice will be drawn to the fact that ALL accommodation was temporary – even Lord Nelson's. Merchant vessels had to carry cargo and were designed for that purpose and warships were designed so that they could be fought by their crews and the only space allocated on their decks was for guns, pumps, capstans and rigging.

I can see from your quoted excerpt why you deem Edward Laxton's book a work of such excellence. It conforms to your prejudices.

One wonders why the good Mr. Laxton didn't fasten on the voyage of the Virginius related to us by sciencegeek – that made the voyage of the "Elizabeth and Sarah" look like a pleasure cruise.

"Five thousand ships sailed across the Atlantic with Irish emigrants in the six years of the Famine Emigration. They were diverse in size, safety and comfort, or the lack of it, and they varied in many other respects - in age and in the experience and quality of their crews, their speed on the voyage, provisions on board, and the fares they charged."

And what Mr Laxton fails to mention, rather conveniently for Christmas's point of view, is that most of those ships landed the vast majority of those who travelled in them safely on the shores of either Canada or America.

"Undoubtedly, many of the Famine ships would have carried African slaves in the early years of the 19th century. "

Not if they were British ships. I believe that even the Americans prohibited the building or fitting out of slavers at round about the same time (1807).