The Following is from the genealogical information researched by John T. Leddy.

         I believe that Peter Leddy and Margaret Sheridan left Ireland for America at the height of the Great Hunger in May 1847 with their children, Bernard (age 6), Maria (age 4) and Catherine (age 2). Their infant daughter, Ellen, was born on July 15, 1847 at sea and was baptized by a Catholic priest, Father Joseph Bailey, on July 30, 1847 at Grosse Ile, Quebec, Canada, a quarantine station located on an island situated in the Saint Lawrence River, a few miles downstream from Quebec City (according to the records kept at Grosse Ile).

        The records of Grosse Ile indicate that a ship named The George arrived from Dublin, Ireland on July 28, 1847, two days before Ellen Leddy was baptized there on July 30, 1847. I believe that the Leddy family emigrated on The George, which weighed anchor at Dublin on May 30, 1847 with a Captain W. Sheridan at the helm (according to Grosse ile records). It is quite possible that Margaret Sheridan-Leddy was a relation of the ship's captain, W. Sheridan. This possible connection may have afforded the Leddy family the opportunity to emigrate in a less expensive manner than otherwise may have been available during "Black '47". As luck would have it, there is an eyewitness account of the voyage of The George written by a Robert Whyte, an Irish gentleman, whose diary was published in 1848 under the title The Ocean Plague: The Diary of a Cabin Passenger.

        According to Whyte, The George carried a large number of emigrants from Co. Meath, the county whence Margaret Sheridan-Leddy's parents, John Sheridan and Ellen Gibney-Sheridan, originally came.

They were chiefly from the County Meath, and sent out at the expense of their landlord without any knowledge of the country to which they going, or means of livelihood except the labour of the father of each family.

        According to Whyte's account, during the voyage some of the passengers in steerage bemoaned the fact that the landlord had booked passage on the ship for his tenants in order to get them off the land, which would then be vacant and available to be re-let at an even higher rent. As I understand it, such was not an uncommon practice for landlords or their agents during the Great Hunger.

         Because no reference to Catherine Leddy's baptism in 1845 has been found as yet in the Co. Cavan records, perhaps Peter and Margaret Sheridan Leddy had relocated to Co. Meath before Catherine's birth, and Catherine may have been baptized in Co. Meath. Thus, the Leddy family may have been among the Meath tenants whose landlord had paid for their passage.

        Interestingly, there is a reference in Whyte's diary to the birth of an infant girl on The George, whom likely was Ellen Leddy. It is the only birth which occurred during passage and the Captain, upon giving a "blessing" of sorts to the baby, requests that the infant be named after his wife, Ellen.

(See The Ocean Plague: The Diary of a Cabin  Passenger, at 55-56 (Monday, 26 July 1847). There is further reference to this birth in the seminal work on An Gorta Mor entitled The Great Hunger: Ireland 1845-1849 by Cecil Woodham-Smith, at page 223, citing Whyte's diary.)