The sailing ship, the Francis Spaight, was registered in Limerick in May 1835 and was advertised in the newspapers of the time as the “grandest ship Limerick had ever seen”. Built in England earlier that year, it was built for the Canada trade and was intended to be “one of the most superior vessels ever offered to emigrants”. It was named after its owner, the Limerick merchant, Francis Spaight, who was also local magistrate in the area.
In September 1835, on its second ever voyage to Canada, the Francis Spaight ship left the Limerick Quays with a crew of 18 men on what was to be its ill-fated journey. The captain of the ship was Timothy Gorman, a master mariner in his 40s from Kilrush, Co. Clare. Many of his crew came from the town of Kilrush also.
The outward journey was uneventful and evidence from the time suggests there were no passengers aboard this leg of the journey. On 24th November, after over a month in the port city of St John, New Brunswick, the Francis Spaight with its cargo of timber set sail for Limerick. On the night of 3rd December, the ship ran into a storm in the middle of the Atlantic and turned bottom up. On getting the masts cut away, it again righted, but with the loss of three of the crew.
Provisions were lost over board, and the sailors found themselves adrift at sea in freezing winter conditions with no food or water. They endured for sixteen days, but finding it impossible to sustain themselves any longer, Captain Gorman called his crew together. The question they had to consider was whether one or all should die.
What unfolds is a strange and macabre story that saw a very unusual custom come into play – The Custom of the Sea – whereby lots were drawn to determine who will be killed and eaten for food to sustain the remaining crew, when it was clear there were no other alternatives. As a result, the Francis Spaight ship became infamous for an incident of cannibalism where four of the crew were eaten by their own crewmates.
The Custom of the Sea draws on testimony from the time, along with archival research from Ireland, England and Canada, to reveal the gripping story of what happened on that desperate journey from Canada to Limerick almost 200 years ago.
Contributors to the documentary include Dr. Matthew Potter, curator of the Limerick Museum; Arlene White, chairperson of the Killaloe Ballina Local History Society; Dr Richard McMahon from Mary Immaculate College Limerick; and Sharon Slater, Historian in Residence, Ormston House, Limerick.
The documentary is narrated by Limerick actor Andrew Bennett, who’s currently seeing huge success starring in hit movie An Cailín Ciúin.
Available for podcast from rte.ie/doconone on Friday 12th August, 2022.
Broadcast on RTÉ Radio 1 @ 2pm, Saturday 13th August, 2022. Repeated on Sunday 14th August at
Narrated by Andrew Bennett
Produced by Marc McMenamin and Sarah Blake