If I'm not mistaken, Brian, the "Constellation" was supposed to be a "Sister Ship" to the "Constitution", although there is some controversy about that. She served in the War of 1812, was rebuilt at one point, and served as part of the Blockading Fleet during the Civil War. She is (or pretty much has) been extensively restored and at last report is on display in Baltimore.

I wonder if some of the "wheat and corn" the Navy brought was for seed stock as well as for food, so that the Irish Farmers would have an alternative crop to potatos which, obviously, weren't doing all that well. Whatever it was, I get the distinct impression that the Royal Navy wasn't at all thrilled that the Irish were getting anything, and only stood aside after looking down the muzzles of some ominous Yankee iron. During the 1812 affair, the Brits generally kicked American butt on the water - but by the time of the Mexican War the Yankee Navy was one which even the Limeys sat up and paid attention to.

It was some sort of "International incedent", perhaps not far from a war, but one which somehow got "covered up" and all but erased from the jorunal of World History some way or another.

Are you sure that was 1880? I was under the impression that the famine was earier than that - 1840's. By the Civil War the USS Constellation was one of the oldest American Warships still serving on the Fleet, and by 1880 I would be amazed if she was still on active duty.

One point indicitcave of at least a modicum of British compassion was that if Native Irish people could manage a way to immigrate, they were apparently allowed to go as an option to starving to death or dying of the rampant diseases. Helluvva choice, but it was better than what the Russian dissidents got 100 years later under Stalin, wasn't it?