Martin Howley, who has died aged 62, was a pioneering fishing skipper, businessman and industry leader who combined vision and risk-taking with a quiet generosity and an innate sense of fun.
He was a "natural born leader" with a reputation that extended from "the north of Norway to China", according to former Killybegs Fishermen's Organisation chief executive Joey Murrin, who has described him as a "fisherman at heart".
The eldest of five children, he was reared on a farm in the parish of Castleconnor/Corbally on the Sligo-Mayo border. His mother, Margaret, died aged 41 when Martin was just 10, and his father, Patrick, had no siblings to help him rear five young children while also running the farm.
Martin’s intelligence was noted in school reports, which also described him as having a wild and mischievous streak that required a “strict hand”. According to his sister Mary, he had no intention of fulfilling his father’s wish to go to university to become a lawyer or accountant.
Fisheries school
When
Bord Iascaigh Mhara
(BIM), the Irish Sea Fisheries Board, visited his school in Ballina seeking recruits for its training school in Greencastle, Co
Donegal
, the 17-year-old jumped at the chance.
“Our father said ‘don’t worry, he’ll be back in a day’, but he wasn’t – he stuck it out,” Mary says. After finishing the BIM training, Martin fished first on the east coast before moving to Killybegs, Co Donegal. His slightly embarrassed father used to tell people that his son “worked for BIM”.
As close friend and colleague Seamus Hayden notes, Martin was one of a generation of “hungry young fishermen” who came to the industry at a time when technology was changing, corresponding with growth in vessel size and horsepower.
The closure of the North Sea to herring fishing in the mid-1970s offered opportunities for Irish skippers and processors, particularly on the west coast. Martin Howley's potential was recognised by Killybegs vessel owner Seamus Tully, who hired him as a mate, and then a skipper, on the Carmarose and the Jasper Sea.
With colleague John “the Dane” Bach, Howley mastered the art of pair trawling, and both were among a handful of top Killybegs skippers who pioneered the new fishery for mackerel, selling frozen fish initially to Nigeria.
They became business partners with Tully, adopting a policy of landing whenever they could in Donegal to keep the fish factories going, fishing with three successive supertrawlers all named Atlantic Challenge.
The partnership included investments in three 35-metre boats and a US seafood plant in Gloucester, Massachusetts, and interests in Namibia.
World reputation
Martin Howley was “well- known on both sides of the Atlantic, and in the Pacific alike to the skippers and owners of the Alaska Pollock factory trawlers fishing the Bering Sea as to the scad mackerel purse seine fishermen of southern Chile”, according to Seamus Hayden.
It was only natural that he should work full-time for Swan Nets when he came ashore, having already been active as a gear consultant, director and shareholder; latterly, he was part of a consortium which has pioneered the Bio-marine Ingredients plant planned for Killybegs.
He developed his communication skills as an industry representative with Joey Murrin at key negotiations in Brussels, playing the soft cop to Murrin’s tough cop routine.
Though his first responsibility was to the Donegal pelagic fleet, he was equally passionate about the raw deal secured by the Irish whitefish fleet under the flawed EU Common Fisheries Policy.
On land, his interests ranged from rally driving to racehorses to clay pigeon shooting. He was also an investor with his daughter Marguerite in the Castle Murray Hotel, where a wake held for him attracted thousands of sympathisers, many of whom recalled his many acts of generosity and friendship, his unique storytelling ability, his big smile and irrepressible sense of fun.
Martin Howley is survived by his widow, Teresa, sons Noel, Pauric and Shaun, daughter Marguerite, brothers Frank and Padraig, sisters Mary and Eilish, and extended family.