Irish and German Mercenary Soldiers' Revolt - The Voyage To Brazil

The Voyage To Brazil

The first ship sailed for Rio de Janeiro in August 1827, and the rest of the fleet soon followed.

Among the volunteers were the John Clancy family, from near Waterford in Ireland. The family consisted of John Clancy and his wife, Mary (or was it Elizabeth) Clancy, née Ahearn, along with their two daughters, Nancy and Ellen, and a son, name unknown. It was from newspaper interviews with Nancy Clancy on her birthdays in her latter years (she lived to be 95), that the hardships of their voyage came to light. While at sea, the young Clancy son died of yellow fever. His body was used as bait to catch the shark that had been following the ship. The boy was then removed from the shark's stomach and given a proper Christian burial. Afterwards, the shark was divided up among the hungry passengers. (??SOURCE??) Then their ship was wrecked off Tenerife with the loss of more than half of the passengers. The replacement ship had to make an emergency stop on an island off the coast of South America, where only the hospitality of the local natives saved them from starvation. The replacement ship reached Rio de Janeiro in late January 1828, when most of the other ships arrived.