The 'Great Eastern'

 


I completed my mural of the 'Great Eastern' ship on my 66th birthday and on my last day of work as a postman in Wicklow Town. The mural was commissioned by Gerry Johnston, film-maker and producer.

When the 'Great Eastern' was launched in 1858, she was the largest ship in the world. She was designed by the great Victorian engineer, Isambard Kingdom Brunel and was built at Milwall on the River Thames. It would be 40 years before a ship so large was built again.

The 'Great Eastern' was 211 metres (692 ft) long, 25 m (83 ft) wide. She was designed to carry 4,000 passengers, plus crew and could travel around the world without refuelling. She was powered by sails, plus paddle wheels and also a screw propeller. She had five engines with a total power of 8,000 hp. She had six masts named after the days of the week from Monday to Saturday, which could carry a huge amount of sail.

On her maiden voyage in 1860, an explosion killed several of the crew and the ship became a financial disaster as a passenger ship. Eight years after shet was launched, she was refitted as a cable laying ship. 

The 'Great Eastern', with Wicklow Town's renowned citizen, Robert Charles Halpin as First Officer, laid the first successful trans-Atlantic telegraph cable from Valentia Island off the coast of Kerry, to Hearts Content in Newfoundland, Canada in 1866. This was at the second attempt after a failure the previous year, 1865.

The first cable cable broke after 1660 miles (2670 km), just short of half way across.. Next year, they tried again, this time with success, when Halpin really made his name. He navigated the ship back to the first broken cable in 2000 feet (610 metres) of water, picked it up, spliced it and finished the job.

The 'Great Eastern' laid over 48,000 km (30,000 miles) of telegraph cable from 1866 to 1878. She ended life as a floating music hall and gym.

The ship was broken up in 1889, and it took 18 months and 200 men to dismantle her. ‘Thursday’ one of the masts from the 'Great Eastern', is now the flagpole at Liverpool Football Club. There are stories, not fully verified, that when she was being dismantled, the bodies of one or more workers who had disappeared during the build, were found between the inner and outer hull.

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