The rain stopped for a crucial few hours last Sunday in Ballyvooney Cove, Co Waterford, in time for celebrations to mark the dramatic rescue 100 years ago of every crew member from a shipwreck.
The sharp rocks adjacent to the part of the cliff known as the Arch still hold the bare bones of the hull of a substantial steamer, the Cirilo Amorós, driven ashore before dawn during a dreadful storm on February 15th, 1926.
This shipwreck is part of our family lore, and of Stradbally and the neighbouring parishes. I was there early on Sunday with Spanish descendants of the captain, Joaquín Herrera, before the afternoon celebrations began.
His grandsons, Jorge and Rafael Alemany, did not grow up with the story as I did. They only heard the full story a few years ago, when a Spanish blogger wrote about the Cirilo Amorós.
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Until then, all the Alemany family knew was that their grandfather had been wrecked somewhere off Ireland. Their grandfather was 30 years older than their grandmother, and died when their mother was still very young.
If events had transpired even a little differently, he and the entire crew might have perished on the day of the wreck. The locals were terrified that the ship would capsize, and traditionally, many sailors never learn to swim.
Only last month, Cian Flaherty, a historian and researcher who grew up in Stradbally came across an updated version of the Manuel Rodríguez Aguilar blog. He contacted the Alemany family through the author. When Flaherty told them about the centenary celebrations, they asked if they could come along.
The proposal was met with the same enthusiasm that greeted the Spanish sailors a hundred years before.
So there we were last Sunday, the Spanish grandsons of the captain and me, the granddaughter of Will O’Brien, remembering how he had waded into the towering waves to catch a line tied to a lifebuoy. This was attached to a stronger cable from the ship and, with great difficulty, was hauled up the cliff and attached to fencing posts. Local man Jack O’Keeffe fetched the civic guards from Stradbally. Together, they proceeded to haul the sailors off the ship using a breeches buoy.
[ Gone aground: Cian Flaherty on the centenary of a Waterford shipwreckOpens in new window ]
My father, then aged about nine, remembered the first sailor coming across the rope gripping with hands and feet, greasing the cable with tallow, so the breeches buoy, an apparatus into which a sailor could sit, would work smoothly.
Gazing up at the cliff, it was hard to fathom the courage of a sailor suspended over wickedly sharp rocks. The storm that had driven them so far off-course, made worse by the loss of a rudder, was still raging.
Last Sunday, our Spanish visitors and their wives, Ana Díez and Marisa González, were full of wonder, seeing for themselves where the ship was forced on to the rocks. Garvan Cummins, Christine King, and Cian Flaherty, the event’s organisers, were really hoping the visitors would catch a glimpse of the wreck.
Even at low tide, the remains of the ship are hard to see, especially in stormy weather. Someone spotted that jutting metal could be seen for seconds about once a minute, and the cheers echoed off the cliffs every time it happened.
Later, my brother Joe showed them a door in a farm building that originally had been a cabin door. Another family, the Connors, had an intact porthole. Recycling was not invented in the twenty-first century.
One hundred years ago is a short enough time to live fondly in the memories of local people, especially since it is an unambiguously happy event. No one died or was even seriously injured, unlike a previous wreck a century before, where only the captain and mate survived.
More than 200 people came to celebrate, including many relatives of Will O’Brien and Jack O’Keeffe, and of one of the Civic Guards, John Drennan. My husband and family regaled them with a rousing revised version of a ballad from the time, possibly originally composed by Jack Daly, an ancestor of Kate Bush.
Ballyvooney’s small car park was packed for the unveiling of an information plaque. Later, in Whelans Pub, where the captain, almost prostrate from strain, had originally been accommodated, there was a steamer-shaped cake.
One hundred years ago is also long enough to be an entirely different world. Oranges were a rare fruit, and the sight of hundreds bobbing on the tide had people agog. My uncle Johnny, aged 10, was sent off in the dark to fetch neighbours from miles around. It’s hard to imagine a child of that age being given that responsibility today. Gender roles were much more demarcated too. Some women continued the essential work of milking while their men were off rescuing sailors.
But one thing has not changed. People need good news stories. It was great to get away from our screens long enough to celebrate the courage of a community that literally pulled together to save lives.
[ Worst shipwreck you’ve never heard ofOpens in new window ]
