Our seafaring heritage is finally getting the permanent recognition it deserves with the redevelopment of the maritime museum in Dún Laoghaire, writes Lorna Siggins
There may not be enough cannons, cutlasses or commotion for pirates such as Capt Jack Sparrow, and its tranquil atmosphere has been compared to "a temple to some vanished race". However, the home to one of the State's finest collections of maritime artefacts is now being transformed under a €6 million development plan.
Breasal Ó Caollai, jeweller and prominent member of the Dún Laoghaire business community, admits that the collection in the 19th-century mariners' church on Haigh Terrace, Dún Laoghaire, could and should have been on the national "radar" many years before now.
Synonymous with the late historian Dr John de Courcy Ireland and Maritime Institute colleagues such as Des Branigan, the collection's survival depended for decades on the voluntary efforts of those who shared a fascination for life beyond low-tide mark.
"Objects trouves - sea wrack and relics of ship's lost, of lives gone down in the deep and the bravery and ingenuity of the captains and crews of everything from the Great Eastern to lifeboats and currachs," is how artist Brian Lalor has described the exhibition of maritime models, craft, communication and navigation equipment, paintings, photographs, flags and more. There are charts, stamps, postcards, badges, and the hypnotic Baily lighthouse optic, which, as Lalor wrote in his book, Dublin Bay, "transforms what might be merely a reliquary of vanquished seamen into a magical interior of glazed containers, each of which reveals some stage in the long history of ships and of the sea".
As Ó Caollai notes, the mariner's church is a story in itself, as one of the last surviving buildings dedicated to seafarers in western Europe. The original simple structure dating from 1835 was extended in the 1860s, adding a granite spire and a bell cast in Dublin in 1868. The spire is said to owe its existence to the visit of a British royal to the former "Kingstown", who asked if it was a "cowshed" he spotted near the harbour. The style is "perpendicular Gothic", as adopted by the Irish Protestant community, and it only became home to the museum after it was vacated in 1974 and leased to the Maritime Institute of Ireland by the Representative Church Body (RCB).
The Government and the Office of Public Works gave grants amounting to €3.3 million towards conservation of the building and the establishment of a memorial to 167 mariners and fishermen lost during the second World War.
Branigan, one of the last surviving founders of the institute, also bought the church at a nominal sum of €30,000 from the RCB. After a contentious annual general meeting last year, a new institute committee was elected - of which Ó Caollai is now secretary. By then, phase one of the work on the church had begun, including replacement of the roof, cleaning and pointing of walls, restoration of the bell tower, and restoration and preservation of the stained-glass windows.
JAMES SLATTERY OF David Slattery, conservation architects, was engaged to oversee the project, and the contract was awarded to John Sisk and Son Ltd. The museum has now been closed for some months, and will continue to remain so until the second phase is complete - with a target date of next year. This second phase includes providing toilets and access for people with disabilities; installing heating, using sustainable energy where possible; removal and replacement of internal plaster and re-decoration; development of the basement for workshops, storage and exhibition; and installation of new display cases and units.
The plan also involves relocation of the library, provision of a reading room and a restaurant. Ó Caollai says that this is subject to planning permission, and there may be scope for building a restaurant in the grounds - given the premium on space within the church itself.
"Before we started, special dust-proof rooms were installed in the vaults to store all the artefacts," he explains. "The current librarian Tom Moran has stored thousands of books, and we put extensive protective scaffolding around those we couldn't move - such as the Baily optic."
The museum owes its origins to the Maritime Institute, which was formed at a critical historical period - 1941 - when Irish Shipping had been founded and Irish seafarers ran the gauntlet of second World War hostilities. Following an exhibition hosted by the institute in Dublin in 1947, the daughters of Wicklow's famous seafarer, Capt Robert Halpin, offered their father's collection for permanent display.
It was a significant gesture. Halpin was the last captain of the Great Eastern, which laid the first successful telegraph cables from Europe, as in Valentia Island, Co Kerry, to the Americas. The collection - including the captain's uniform, sextant and sea chest, a model of the Great Eastern and pictures of the cable-laying - formed the nucleus of material which was initially housed in a former seamen's hostel on St Michael's Wharf.
THE NEW MUSEUM was opened by Seán Lemass, but had to move premises when the hostel was up for demolition as part of redevelopment. Dalkey town hall provided a temporary home until the mariner's church was offered by Church of Ireland rector Rev Robin C Armstrong. There was yet another formal opening, this time by President Hillery, and the museum's then administrator, Stella Archer, secured State trainee support through an AnCO (now Fás) scheme for essential improvements and repairs.
Curator Kate Robinson and librarian Brendan Neary acquired additional material, such as books and research documentation, and the National Museum of Ireland provided the loan of a yole from the frigate Resolue, which accompanied the French Bantry Bay expedition of 1796 and was captured on Whiddy Island. The museum secured models of the Sirius, Cork-owned and the first ship to cross the Atlantic entirely on steam power; the Aran ferry, DúAengus; several Naval Service ships; and the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company's Leinster, which was struck by German submarine torpedoes while en route to Holyhead in October, 1918, with the loss of 501 lives.
Donations included the original track chart of German submarine U19, recorded when it landed Roger Casement in Kerry in April, 1916, and other material given by the submarine's captain, Raimund Weisbach, to Dr de Courcy Ireland on the 50th anniversary of that voyage. It acquired models of traditional Irish craft, including a cot, a hooker, a coracle, a typical schooner from Arklow, Co Wicklow, and the model of the first fishing vessel built by Arklow naval architect, the late Jack Tyrrell.
It has housed relics of other ship disasters of this coastline, such as steering gear and crockery from the Tayleur, which struck Lambay island in a storm while carrying emigrants from Liverpool to Australia in 1854, and the Queen Victoria paddle steamer, which struck rocks near Baily lighthouse en route from Liverpool to Dún Laoghaire in 1853. A bone model in its possession was made by French naval prisoners at Kinsale, Co Cork, during the Napoleonic wars.
The yole has returned since to the National Museum of Ireland, but Haigh Terrace has continued to attract thousands of visitors over the years. Volunteers such as the late Bobbie Brennan and the late Dr Philip Smyly served many years there, opening the museum on a part-time basis. As part of the new project, which has been endorsed by Dún Laoghaire-Rathdown council, there are plans for a full-time curator.
However, much will depend on finances. Ó Caollai estimates that an additional €2.75 million "plus VAT" will be required, on top of the OPW's €3.3 million, to see the refurbishment plan through. In an effort to engage the immediate community, the Maritime Institute of Ireland has initiated a €100,000 appeal. Several summer events have been targeted, including Dún Laoghaire regatta weekend of July 14th/15th and the Dún Laoghaire Festival of World Cultures in late August. Ó Caollai believes that the community will give the project its support, given the past support for Dún Laoghaire's lifeboat station - the oldest in the State. In the words of a proverb often quoted by Dr de Courcy Ireland, "an té go bhfuil long aige, géibheann se cóir uair éigin" - "the person who owns a boat will some day find his reward".