A four-day festival was held in in May, 2017, (News Letter) to mark the three-hundredth anniversary of the departure of the ship the Friends’ Goodwill, which is thought to be the first ship to take emigrants to North America. The voyage took four months – see the Ulster Scots Agency for a description of the challenges it faced and the kind of reception the emigrants might have received in Boston. As part of the festivities, an information panel was added to the memorial, designed by Ed Barton (tumblr), that had stood in Curran Park, since 1992.
“This memorial, unveiled on 16th May 1992 by Professor Bobby Moss PhD of South Carolina, is dedicated to the memory of those first Ulster emigrants who sailed from Larne in May 1717 upon the “Friends’ Goodwill”, bound for Boston. They were to be the first of many. “There is no other race in the United States that can produce a roll of honour so long and so shining with distinction and who shall deny our claim to have done more, much more than any others to make the United States.”
“On the 300th anniversary of the departure of Friends’ Goodwill, we honour the Ulster-Scots who left their homeland to forge new lives in America. Through resilience and courage, their character helped shape a nation revered for freedom and opportunity. To this day, we extend the hand of friendship to our kin in the United States Of America.”
Curran Park, Curran Road, Larne
Click image to enlarge
Copyright © 2026 Paddy Duffy
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