The Plassy is the wreck shown in the opening sequence of Fr Ted. Behind it is a real story of a heroic rescue.

2011 is the fiftieth anniversary of the successful raising of the almost intact early seventeenth- century Swedish warship Vasa from the mud at the bottom of Stockholm Harbour. It represents one of the greatest maritime archaeological recoveries ever carried out. After the salvage of the ship in 1961, it was conserved and restored and can be seen in a specially built museum where it has attracted millions of visitors over the years.

The history of slavery is probably as old as that of mankind itself. Hundreds of thousands of slaves built such classical civilisations as Greece, Egypt and Rome. Viking Dublin was a major slave trading port in its heyday. However, for the purposes of this story I will deal only with the transatlantic slave trade whereby from twelve to twenty million African slaves were transported to the Americas over a span of four hundred years.

Mexican Silver Dollars at Galley Head, recovered from the cargo of the Crescent City

Austin’s own account of his experience of being ship-wrecked

The story of the fist ship acquired by Irish Shipping

need to transcribe ?

The Mystery of the Titanic

She was the largest ship in the world at the time
She was proclaimed unsinkable
She collided with an iceberg and sank on her maiden voyage.

History of the SS Lochgarry
One of Ireland’s most Popular Recreational Diving Wrecks

“The two barren islets are best remembered as the scene of the several shipwrecks. Here in 1819 the Demerary carrying gold bullion was wrecked and sank. One of her passengers, a Scotsman named Hugh Monro Robertson and sixteen members of the crew were washed ashore at Cullenstown and buried in the ancient graveyard in the Cill Park near Cullenstown Castle. Monroe’s is the only tombstone there now as one of the pillars from the memorial over the sailors’ grave was used as a weight on a harrow by a local farmer. To this day it is said that traces of gold dust from the Demerary’s strong room are found on the sand of the Keeraghs”