A new TV series on Cork's 'hidden treasure' dispels myths about the Titanic and explores the wreck of the Aud, writes Lorna Siggins, Marine Correspondent
We could have done with Jimmy Crowley. Scéimh na Finne (Blonde Bombshells!) was the crew name, 55 was the number, and the four of us had never trained together in a naomhóg when we embarked on Ocean to City, Meitheal Mara's contribution to the Cork city of culture last year.
The traditional boat-building organisation's founder, Pádraig Ó Duinnín, had drawn up a daunting route of some 17 miles, modelled on London's great river race. Thanks to a fresh westerly, the initial leg of the course, from Crosshaven to Roche's Point lighthouse, had to be dropped.
The same westerly provided a "delightful" headwind, however, which tested even the fitter folk among the 500 oarspeople and paddlers in an assortment of currachs, naomhógs, skiffs, gigs, longboats, sea kayaks, dragon boats, yoles, cutters and more. Entries came from 10 countries, and among them were Gearóid Towey and Ciaran Lewis, in training for their transatlantic challenge, and a cowhide craft entered by Brú na Boinne, which Ó Duinnín dubbed the "biggest basket in Ireland".
Not having done Lough Derg, one could only speculate that it rivalled the Croagh Patrick pilgrimage in the purgatory stakes . . . what's worse, we had no cox. And we weren't more than a few hundred metres down the course when we realised the merits of the sliding seat.
The fact that Kerry writers Tomás Ó Criomhthain and Muiris Ó Súilleabháin didn't have the benefit of such technical advances when navigating the Blasket Sound by currach was little consolation. What we did take away with us - apart from an assortment of blisters - were wonderful memories of the route, plied by thousands upon thousands of craft over many centuries.
Not for nothing is Cork described as the world's finest natural harbour, and one of the largest. Had we known that musician Jimmy Crowley might have been in the vicinity, we would have had to press-gang him. As a regular on a "philosopher's boat", a "fine time" can be had without venturing beyond Roche's Point, he says in the first episode of The Harbour.
The four-part series was made for RTÉ by David O'Brien, editor of Afloat magazine and sailing correspondent for this newspaper, and he has dedicated the first episode to his former teacher, the late, great maritime historian Dr John de Courcy Ireland, who died a month ago. Last year, O'Brien made a similar series on Dr de Courcy Ireland's beloved Dublin Bay, and this "exploration", as O'Brien bills it, is subtitled "Cork's hidden treasure".
Not that it is "hidden" for distinguished sailors such as Mark Mansfield, sailor and yachtbuilder Donal McClement, or Mark Bushe, one of the last wooden boatbuilders in Crosshaven.
Nor is it for Michael Martin and his former Naval Service colleagues such as Cdr Eugene Ryan, Senior Petty Officer Sam Fealy and Lieut-Cdr Anthony Geraghty, interviewed at Haulbowline and leaving port.
When patrol ships vanish "over the horizon", they are forgotten about, Ryan points out, emphasising the harsh Atlantic environment in which his staff carry out fishery patrols.
Michael Martin's "Titanic Trail" in Cobh emphasises the harbour's role in Irish history, latterly as the last piece of Irish soil on which many emigrants stood, and tries to dispel a few myths.
The doomed liner didn't anchor outside the harbour because of lack of draught, he says in the first episode. Passengers were taken out by small boat to the vessel because of an "obsession with time-keeping", he says - some things never change.
The harbour's topography is similar to that in which the sixth baron of Inchiquin, Murrough O'Brien, tried out the new sport of "yachting",taken up by King Charles II during his exile in the Netherlands, and the Water Club of the Harbour of Cork was founded in about 1720 on Haulbowline island.
Dr Alicia St Leger, author of a history of the world's oldest "YC" - the Royal Cork - imparts some of her extensive knowledge, recounting the strategic reasons for construction of the harbour's three forts, originally named Camden, Carlisle and Westmoreland.
Underwater photographer/diver John Collins takes the viewer down to the harbour bed, and the 1916 bullets amid the wreck of the Aud steamer. People tend to think of the Aud as Roger Casement's gun-running ship, Collins notes, but Casement never saw it. Its captain, Karl Spindler, scuttled the vessel at the harbour's approaches when it was blockaded, and he and his 22 volunteers were captured and became prisoners of war.
Significantly, though too late for the programme, divers from the Sovereign Club in Cork placed a plaque on the wreck over the Easter weekend and noted that Spindler was one of the "forgotten heroes" of the Easter Rising.
It's not all history - Cork's role as a major State seaport is highlighted by harbourmaster Capt Pat Farnan and pilot Jim Gaul, and further episodes examine Cork city's attitude to the 14-mile waterway and its shoreline, home to giraffes and bison on Fota, Spike island's prison, pharmaceutical industries, the national maritime college at Ringaskiddy - earmarked also for that controversial incinerator.
The Harbour by Baily Media Ltd, begins on RTÉ1 next Monday at 7.30pm
