I'm curious about this statement. Beef wasn't as big a farming traditions in Britain as sheep and pigs. Spaniards brought beef to the Americas so there were tens of thousands of cows there, and fewer pigs and sheep...hence corned beef over cured pork that the Irish would have created (pigs very common in Ireland for meat but not in the Americas so they cured beef). Unless Spaniards populated the British Isles with bovine, it seems to me the coffin ships would have been populated with pigs.

Thoughts?