Maritime History of Ireland – Irish Maritime History

An On-line Journal of Research on Irish Maritime History.

The objective of this site is to support and promote research into Irish Maritime History. We include some general maritime history and general Irish history.

Here we will publish articles, as well as identifying articles on other sites We will provide some material which may be of assistance to researchers suggest libraries, museums and other locations We will review books, list lecture programs and make other announcements

Encourage education and school programs, such as Comenius and 'Follow the fleet' Participate in other like-minded projects, such as Wikipedia's WikiProject Irish Maritime. The overall objective is to promote an appreciation of our maritime history.

A Showcase of Articles, published here

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Apostleship of the Sea (Stella Maris)

Click here for full article The Apostleship of the Sea (affectionately known as Stella Maris to seafarers in approximately 60 countries (many with multiple ports) by Rose Kearney

Audacious Secret

Click here for full article World War 1 was declared on 5 August 1914. On 27 October 1914, disaster befell the Royal Navy. HMS Audacious, a modern "state-of-the-art" super-dreadnought battleship, struck a mine and sank. This embarrassment would have been immense and could have been pivotal to their fortunes only weeks into WW1. It would have been very demoralising to the British public to admit the loss of such a vessel. It remained a secret until the end of the war

Captain Hutchison

Click here for full article Captain William Hutchison (1793-1881): the first Harbourmaster of Kingstown 1817-1874; Coxswain of the Dublin port lifeboat based at Sandycove; Ex Lieutenant in RN; Inspector of Bulloch Quarries; Pilot Master Port of Dublin; Justice of the Peace.

Coastguard Lifesaving Carts

Click here for full article The Shipwrecked Fishermen and Mariners Royal Benevolent SocietyA rope thrown from the shore was a useful tool, and a pulley system – later known as a ‘breeches buoy’ – could be set up to ferry people to safety. However, a person could only throw a rope a short distance, usually against the wind. By the […]

Crescent City – Mexican Silver Dollars

Click here for full article Mexican Silver Dollars at Galley Head, recovered from the cargo of the Crescent City

Demeray: Treasure Ship

Click here for full article “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”

Drevar’s Gold & Wellington Pennies

Click here for full article Another story of a treasure ship, lost off the Irish coast

Early Irish Free State Naval Activity

Click here for full article Eddie Bourke Dainty The early years of the Irish Free State from January 1922 were a time of turmoil after the war of Independence ceased with the Truce in July 1921. The British army commenced their withdrawal and the Free State Army developed from the Volunteers of the IRA. The seizure of the Four Courts […]

Fethard Lifeboat Disaster.

Click here for full article need to transcribe ?

Folia

Click here for full article The SS Folia is a popular dive site off the Waterford coast. Here we learn the story of this once gracious passenger liner

Francis Beaufort (Wind Scale)

Click here for full article We are all used to hearing weather forecasts on radio or television predicting ‘Wind Force So-and- So’. How many realise that the inventor of the Wind-Scale was born and brought up in Ireland, and did here some of the scientific experiments which place him among the greatest contributors anywhere at any time to the development of the marine sciences?

From Havana to Skibereen (Piet Hein)

Click here for full article "The bones of the treasure ship Santa Anna Maria lie strewn in forty feet of water on a rocky headland off Reen point in Castlehaven. Her oak keel and planking are largely intact" - read the story from the age of discovery and colonization of kingdoms of the new world.

G2, the coast-watching service and the Battle of the Atlantic

Click here for full article This paper is an early version of the introduction to the Guarding Neutral Ireland: the coastwatching service and military intelligence 1939-45 (Four Courts Press, 2008)

Guardships at Kingstown

Click here for full article GUARD-SHIPS AT KINGSTOWN By Cormac F. Lowth Shortly after the completion of Kingstown Harbour in the early 1820s, it became a convenient and preferred haven for elements of the British Royal Navy. It was a regular port of call for most visiting naval vessels in preference to the main port of Dublin with its sometimes […]

HMS A5 (Forgotten Submariners) Lost at Cobh

Click here for full article on 13 February 1905. H M Submarine A5 was in the Haulbowline Naval Base, Queenstown,(now Cobh), Co Cork. There was an explosion while her petrol engine was being refueled. The dead were buried in the Old Church Cemetery. The five graves were neglected and overgrown with moss such that the headstones could not be read. In 1999, Chief Petty Officer Owen O'Keeffe of the Irish Naval Service initiated their restoration

Hobblers – who were they?

Click here for full article More than seven decades after their dangerous enterprise came to an end Dun Laoghaire families with close links to the sea gathered in late September to honour the hobblers. “The who? ” asked one local teenager when told by a friend that he intended to be present at the dedication in Dun Laoghaire harbour of a compelling monument to the men who years ago guided ships to harbour before the arrival of the Dublin Port pilots.

Ireland’s Mercantile Marine during the Second World War

Click here for full article An earlier version of this article was donated to Wikipedia The Irish Mercantile Marine[lugnote]In Ireland it is the “Mercantile Marine”; in the United Kingdom, it is the “Merchant Navy”; in the USA, it is the “Merchant Marine”.[/lugnote] during World War II continued essential overseas trade during the conflict, a period referred to as “The Long […]

Irish Poplar

Click here for full article The story of the fist ship acquired by Irish Shipping

Irish Willow

Click here for full article On 16 March 1942, U-753 stopped the Irish Willow, While they waited on instructions from Berlin, whether or not to sink her, they shared schnapps to honour St Patrick

Irish WWII Losses

Click here for full article How Ireland´s Mercantile Marine fared during WWII by Frank Forde, author of "The Long Watch", the standard work on this subject

ISL and Lemass

Click here for full article This article has been written to give people a sense of conditions in Ireland during the early years of the “Emergency” which existed in Ireland from 1939, and the urgent need for shipping which brought about the formation of Irish Shipping Ltd. In condensing a journal of 200 close typewritten pages much detail can be lost but I have taken great pains to reproduce each commodity named so you will understand where the most want occurred. I have learned great respect for the Minister, his Department, the officials of Irish Shipping, their Officers and Crew many of whom paid the ultimate price, with their lives, so we would have the necessities of life in a very turbulent time for our young Nation and the World. - Joe Ryan, 19th March 2016.

John DeLap – Imperial Russian Navy

Click here for full article John DeLap of the Imperial Russian Navy, credited with saving the life of Peter the Great

John Philip Holland (Submarines)

Click here for full article need to check

John Richardson Wigham: lighthouse engineer, inverter and businessman.

Click here for full article A great inventor and businessman. Actually born in Scotland, he was accused of being Irish, which he never denied. When he was 15 years old he left Scotland for Dublin to start his apprenticeship. Despite prejudice he was very successful

Lady Nelson

Click here for full article On 14th October 1809, The Lady Nelson, Captain Bernard Wade, was shipwrecked on a voyage from Oporto to Liverpool, off the Skelligs, Co. Kerry. The 200 tonne vessel contained a cargo of wine and fruit. 25 souls perished in the disaster.

Legends of the Lusitania

Click here for full article LEGENDS OF THE LUSITANIA The sinking of the Lusitania by a torpedo from U20 off the Old Head of Kinsale on Friday 7 May 1915 was the single greatest shipwreck tragedy in Irish waters. Some 1200 men, women and children died. A warning to intending passengers had been placed beside the sailing notice in the […]

Leinster

Click here for full article U-boats sink the Mail-Boat and Many More in the Irish Channel The Atlantic Gateway Jim Phelan 1941 When ships crossed the channel between Ireland and England during WW1, they were attacked and sunk by German submarines. The loss of ships, Irish or not, with civilians, service men and women, was not only condemned by those […]

Lifeboat Mary Stanford

Click here for full article The most famous lifeboat

Construction Lines of the Tayleur

Click here for full article The Tayleur is known as the first Titanic. Sixty years before the Titanic, this White Star liner, technically the most advanced for her age. was lost on her maiden voyage. The design of "clipper ships" had reached its zenith. Tayleur incorporated innovations of its time. She was built of steel rather than wood (the misaligned compass was a factor in her loss) This article discusses her dimension and construction.

Look-Out-Post 6 Howth Head

Click here for full article Firstly I’d like to look at Howth Head LOP in the general context of the Coast Watching Service and talk about what the service was and how the Howth post operated within that structure. Then I’d like to focus on the post in day-to-day operation during a particular period of the Second World War, a period usually ignored by historians of the Battle of the Atlantic.

Lord Cloncurry and the Aid

Click here for full article The AID with a valuable cargo of Roman sculptures sank at Killiney. This tells of Lord Cloncurry, his life and the loss of the AID

Loss of Emigrant Ship Exmouth

Click here for full article In 1847, During the Great Hunger, the Brig Exmouth left Derry (Londonderry) for Quebec. Rather than sailing west across the Atlantic, a gale blew her east and she was wrecked on the island of Islay, off the coast of Scotland. The passengers were, mainly, small farmers and tradesmen with their families. There were only three survivors. 248 were lost.

My experience of being shipwrecked

Click here for full article Austin's own account of his experience of being ship-wrecked

M.V. Plassy: Rescue

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

Maritime Art and Dún Laoghaire

Click here for full article Illustrated talk given to the Dún Laoghaire Borough Historical Society on Feb. 21st. 2007.

Miracle on Galway Bay

Click here for full article At 03:40am on 15 August 1949 Valentia Radio received a report from the British trawler Stalberg which had been fishing off the Aran Islands in the West of Ireland; “Airplane down in Galway Bay, am searching your area” The subsequent co-ordination of air, sea and land assets resulted in the miraculous rescue of almost all crew and passengers of a Transocean Air lines flight from Rome to Shannon. The drama that unfolded was one of bravery, outstanding skill by the pilots and dogged persistence by the rescuers both at helm and in cockpit.

Morven Disaster. December, 1906.

Click here for full article The Morven was bound from Portland, Oregon to Liverpool with a cargo of about three thousand tons of grain for the Messrs Bannatyne. The place where the wreck occurred is a little promontory locally known as “Horse Island”.

MV Kerlogue, as exemplar of neutral Irish ships during World War II; attacked by both sides and rescued both sides.

Click here for full article The Kerlogue is seen as exemplar of neutral Irish ships during World War II. She was very small. She was attacked by both sides and rescued both sides. The Wild Rose of Liverpool was crippled and sinking following an attack on her convoy. Kerlogue, not only saved the crew, but took the much larger Wild Rose in tow, installed her own pumps and saved the ship. Following the sinking of Z72, Kerlogue which was only 43m long rescued 168 Germans. They were interned in the curragh.

One-Legged Sailor stoned the King

Click here for full article Dennis Collins One-Legged Sailor stoned the King by Cormac F Lowth Throughout the year 1832, debates raged in the British Parliament at Westminster on the subject of Reform. Passions were aroused on the subject and there were heated exchanges which were reported in detail in the newspapers of the day. These reports were often accompanied […]

Pirates at Muglins

Click here for full article Original newspaper report of the crime and execution of pirates, who were left hanging, one at Muglins and another at the Pigeon House. They had seized the ship "Earl of Sandwich", murdered Captain Glass, his wife and daughter and most of the crew.

Pomona, emigrant ship, 389 died

Click here for full article it is out pitiful duty to record. The United States ship Pomona , Captain Merrihew with a crew of thirty five men and three hundred and seventy three passengers, principally Irish left Liverpool on Wednesday 27th instant, bound for New York, she struck the Blackwater Bank, at four o’clock a.m. on the following day. all on board , amounting to 389 souls – the crew and passengers making in the aggregate 408, out of whom only twenty three were saved. We have the above melancholy particulars of this dreadful disaster from the active and efficient agent of the Shipwrecked Mariners society

The loss of troopship Rival from history

Click here for full article The troopship Rival was lost off Connemara. 432 drowned. A forgotten wreck, no folk memory survives, probably because this happened in 1832 shortly before the Famine. The famine was so great a disaster that this disaster, the loss of the Rival, was erased from memory

Robert Gibbings, Underwater Artist

Click here for full article Robert Gibbings, An Irish Artist Underwater By Cormac F. LowthFirst published in SUBSEA, the quarterly journal of the Irish Underwater Council, Autumn 2007. Nowadays we tend to take the imagery produced underwater, mostly by digital photography, very much for granted. The advances in technology and the availability of relatively cheap cameras and waterproof housings have […]

Rochdale and Prince of Wales

Click here for full article These troop ships were lost on their way to the Napoleonic Wars. Over 400 bodies washed up on an urban shore. Allegations that they were trapped below while the crew escaped. This sad incident was an impetus to the construction of Dún Laoghaire Harbour

Roman wrecks of Lake Nemi

Click here for full article There is a small lake called Nemi in the Alban Hills, about 30 kilometers southeast of Rome. Between 1927 and 1933, two enormous wooden ships, which once belonged to the Emperor Caligula, and had lain on the bottom of the Lake for over nineteen hundred years, were salvaged in what was perhaps the greatest underwater archaeological recovery ever accomplished.

Saint-Malo

Click here for full article by Eric Duhan Once you touch ground in Saint-Malo you are entering a place steeped in history from the very first time when man set foot in Western Europe. In the earlier centuries the visitors first view of the city was from out to sea as the city was surrounded by salt marches. It must […]

Salvage Tradition, Law and Lore

Click here for full article The fury with which primitive communities descended upon a stricken vessel can only be regarded with a sense of awe. Tales abound of the ferocity of wreckers and their cruel deeds. Many tales are related which must be apocryphal.

Simon Bolivar – Liberator of Venezuela

Click here for full article One thousand men of the Irish Legion landed on Venezuela's Margarita Island in August 1819, after a 4,500-mile sea voyage from Dublin. These soldiers of fortune, many of them recently demobilized veterans of the Napoleonic Wars, now sought fame and adventure in the armies of South America's Liberator, Simon Bolivar. In the years 1819 and 1820, more than 2,100 Irish soldiers reached Venezuela as members of organized Irish regiments.

Slave Ship Amity (1701)

Click here for full article 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.

The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are described as the golden age of smuggling.

Click here for full article The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are described as the golden age of smuggling.

SS Lochgarry

Click here for full article History of the SS Lochgarry One of Ireland’s most Popular Recreational Diving Wrecks

Tayleur Fund Medal Awards

Click here for full article The sailing ship Tayleur was wrecked in January 1854 at Lambay with the loss of 220 of the 670 aboard. A fund was established in both Liverpool and Dublin to assist the victims. The fund was used to award medals for heroism in the Irish Sea.

Tayleur | First Titanic | shipwrecked | great loss of life

Click here for full article The sailing ship Tayleur was lost at Lambay just north of Dublin on 21 January 1854. Of the 650 aboard only 290 survived, merely three of the hundred women survived and only three of fifty children reached shore. Known as the "First Titanic"

The Argentine Republic Emigration Scheme

Click here for full article This marked the end of Irish emigration to South America. It was badly planned and many died

The Boyd Disaster

Click here for full article February 1861 will be remembered not only for the loss of a great many ships around Dublin Bay but also for the death of a heroic man, who, with some of his companions, attempted to save the lives of some members of shipwrecked crews in Kingstown. This was Captain John McNeil Boyd of the guard-ship H. M. S. AJAX.

The First World War at sea off West Cork

Click here for full article The ferocity of the First World War evokes names like the Somme, Verdun, Paschendale and Mons and maybe Jutland or Coronel. It may therefore be a surprise to realise that the First World War equivalent of the battle of the Atlantic was fought vigorously of the Coast of West Cork. That such a significant front is all but forgotten is no surprise because the Irish rarely turned their eyes seaward except to judge the weather for agriculture.

The Flanders Flotilla and U-Boat Alley

Click here for full article The repeated claims that America declared against Germany during WW1 because her citizens and ships had been attacked by German U-boats is not accurate. Though the U-boats were restrained as a result of American diplomatic protests, America did not enter the war at that time and when they did, it was for different reasons. This has not been the first nor the last time that war was pursued for reasons that were not stated. This type of media management has of course reached heights of a totally new sophistication today.

The Guinness Fleets

Click here for full article The Guinness brewing concern had substantial maritime resources to support distribution of the famous beer. In addition the family spent a lot of their leisure on a range of fabulous pleasure craft. Initially the reach of the brewing concern expanded from 1790 thanks to the commencement of the Irish canal system. Barge transport enabled distribution of their beer from Dublin and import of malt from all parts of the country.

The Man in the Tank

Click here for full article A mystery, a rail tank wagon was washed ashore during the war. The tank contained a corpse

The Man of War Head: A Mystery Solved.

Click here for full article Man Of War in North County Dublin could be better described as a hamlet rather than a village. It consists today of a crossroads with a few houses and a pub, appropriately named the Man Of War Inn.

The Mystery of the Titanic

Click here for full article 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.

The sinking of Arandora Star

Click here for full article The torpedoing of the Blue Star Line’s 15,000-ton luxury liner Arandora Star off Bloody Foreland, Donegal on 2 July 1940 is one of the hidden histories of Second World War Ireland. Though the sinking was reported in the local press in Mayo and Donegal, where it is still remembered, it never made it into the national consciousness due to wartime censorship.

The Vasa, 50 years later

Click here for full article 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 wanderer at Kingstown and John Masefield

Click here for full article The Poet Laureate John Masefield was essentially a sea poet; the sea was what he knew and wrote about best. He we discuss his relationship with the Wander and that ships connection with Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire)

The Wreck of the Bolivar

Click here for full article The Country had been in the grip of freezing conditions for the entire month of February 1947 with snowstorms, and accompanying snowdrifts, which blanketed the countryside and made all movement extremely difficult. Power failures were frequent and added to the general misery. It was against this background that the M.V.BOLIVAR was making her way across the Irish Sea on the morning of Tuesday, March 4th, bound for Dublin Port with a badly needed cargo of grain and other essential items. Like many another fine ship before her, although Dublin Bay was in sight, the BOLIVAR would never reach that port and would leave her bones in the sands of that treacherous graveyard of ships that spans the entrance to Dublin Bay waiting to ensnare the unwary, the Kish Bank.

Tram and schooner collide

Click here for full article Few stories have been mentioned so often with so much confusion than the tale of the collision between a sailing ship and a tram at Ringsend bridge. There have been several errors repeated and one discovery has been that there were two similar incidents at the same place. Earlier researchers have not had the advantage of the computer searchable versions of the digitised newspapers and this has helped resolve mysteries and tales such as this. The story gained interest when the visitor’s centre was constructed near the site of the accident. The story defied researchers who had hoped that a photo of the incident might be available for display.

Fate of U-20, the U-boat which sank Lusitania

Click here for full article U-20, the u-boat which sank the Lusitania, was lost on the Jutland Sands. An account of her loss and the disposal of the wreck

U-35 in Dingle during WW2

Click here for full article at Ballymore, three miles west of Dingle, 4 October 1939, U-35 landed 28 Greek sailors

The barges which ferried barrels of Guinness on the River Liffey

Click here for full article Midsummer’s Day 1961 saw the last commercial passage of a Guinness barge on the River Liffey. According to Al Byrne in his most entertaining book “Guinness Times - My Days in the World’s Most Famous Brewery” it was 6 p.m. when the 80-foot long by 17-foot-one inch-wide barge, Castleknock, sailed from the Custom House with a load of empties and slowly made its funereal way up river to the jetty at St. James’s Gate.

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Thank God, we are surrounded by water

A Showcase of Articles, published here

More interesting articles

Protected: John McEvoy & Irish Willow

Battle of the Piers

Drevar’s Gold & Wellington Pennies

Loss of Emigrant Ship Exmouth