The effects of the voyage in the passengers' health were still alarming by the end of the century. Thomas Murray, who emigrated in 1892, complained 'of the dreadful conditions experienced in the quarantine station. "The treatment given to people is an outrage to humanity". The third class passengers in particular appear to have been deplorably treated. The food was "the dirtiest slop ever offered to a human being"' [McKenna 1994: 150].

Every sailing vessel ‘was compelled to carry livestock. Cows and calves, sheep, goats, pigs and hens were carried in the larger vessels and the noises they made and the smells from their quarter did nothing to improve the conditions [Greenhill & Giffard 1974: 14]. Even the smallest vessels carried a few animals on voyages likely to be of any duration. In the tropics, ‘this heat, added to the closeness, made our cabins very oppressive; the foul air came up the hatchway in the form of smoke, and the captain even sent some one down to see whether the ship was not on fire’ [Greenhill & Giffard 1974: 14].

On these long voyages to South America, averaging from four to six weeks, the modern passenger would be faced with interminable tedium. For most of the travellers, boredom and monotony were annoying aspects of the journey. The first Sisters of Mercy in Argentina (who afterwards would be in charge of the Irish Hospital) had a typical journey in one of the British Packet (Lamport & Holt) vessels:

Cheerfully did they bear the heat of the torrid zone, the monotonous days, the trying tediousness of that lengthy voyage. While most of the passengers, enervated by the fierce tropical sun, lay stretched out as if dead, they [the Sisters] were up and doing. The cooler waters of the South Temperate Zone and its beautiful, starry skies were a relief and a joy to them. After a prosperous but uneventful voyage, their vessel cast anchor in Rio, where they were detained a fortnight for the repair of the coasting steamer in which they were to continue their voyage to La Plata [Murray 1919: 172].

In You'll Never Go Back, Kate remembers that in Liverpool they boarded a steamer. At first she and the other girls 'were very, very sick [...]. It was a long voyage, and after a fortnight the weather became very warm. One day was so like another that I began to wonder whether we were ever to see anything again but green water swinging up and down, and the sky above, so still.' Promiscuity on board presented moral dangers to young women. Kate and her friends sailed 'under the Captain's protection, at least he told us so [...]. He protected Nancy the whole way out, telling her not to trust the officers, and putting her on her guard against some of the gentlemen who were married and who wanted to have a bit of fun because their wives were not on board' [Nevin 1946: 12-13].

A sailing vessel, especially a square-rigged sailing vessel, ‘of course took the routes where the winds were most favourable because to do so was to save time and trouble in the end, even if it mean going thousands of miles out of the way’ [Greenhill & Giffard 1974: 20]. In 1834, a vessel of 420 tons, flush-decked and with three masts would have been mastered by a crew of about twenty persons: ‘the master, two mates and the steward […], the carpenter cooper and one apprentice […], the cook, ten seamen and three apprentices’ [Greenhill & Giffard 1974: 24].

If a regular wage for an Irish rural labourer at that time was 7½ shillings a week,he should have been forced to save during about an year to pay for the passage ticket. This is the reason why McKenna and other authors argue that emigrants from the Irish Midlands and Wexford were tenants and farmers with relatively higher income than the emigrants to North America and other parts of the world, who were primarily labourers. However, labourers without the funds to purchase their tickets to South America were financially assisted from sheep-farmers in Argentina who were looking for skilled shepherds in Ireland. John James Murphy from Salto, Buenos Aires, addressed ship captains in 1864: ‘If you choose to bring out to this country any passengers that my brother (Martin Murphy of Haysland) arrange for, I shall hold myself accountable for the payment of same on their arrival out here.’ In an enclosed separate communication to his brother, Murphy suggested to avoid ‘letting others to see it [the note]. But this I consider only fit for the ears of my own friends in Haysland or at least the greater part of it.’ In this way, he did not risk the expensive cost of tickets on unskilled or unreliable workers [Murphy to Murphy, 25 March 1864].

In spite of the better speed and efficiency of the steamers, even in the late 1880s conditions on board for poor emigrants did not improve. 'Many of the emigrant ships had, [Fr. van Tricht, a priest defending the rights of emigrants] asserted excellent first and second class accommodation, but no cabins or partitions of any kind for the emigrants. Between decks a forest of iron poles, on which the hammocks, sometimes 1,000 in number, are slung in three layers, for men, women, and children together, with no possible privacy of decency, spreading a moral contagion to which he could only allude before his present audience, and inducing an atmosphere which baffles description. Such was often the emigrants' accommodation, in spite of Government Regulations ordering the separation of the sexes and families. He attributed the deaths which invariably occur during the passage out to the over-crowding and utter disregard of all sanitary and hygienic rules which prevail on board many of the emigrants ships. [Fr. van Tricht] had been assured by many of his correspondents that the food, though sufficient in quantity, was execrable in quality, and often quite uneatable' [Vivian to Salisbury, 20 April 1889].