Asgard: Gun-running Boat Turned Training Vessel

IRELAND’S FIRST sail training vessel, Asgard, is to be put on display this year, as work on the vessel is nearing completion at Collins Barracks in Dublin.

National Museum of Ireland director Dr Pat Wallace says conservation will be finished by maritime expert John Kearon in May – four years before the centenary of the Howth gun-running mission of July 1914 by its owner and skipper Erskine Childers.

Named after the Norse word “Asgard” for “home of the gods”, the wooden yacht designed by Colin Archer was built as a wedding present for Childers and his American bride, Molly Osgood. She was wheelchair-bound, and the yacht was fitted to ensure she could latch herself to the helm while steering.

The vessel was subsequently sold in England, and in 1960 it was discovered on the banks of the river Truro in Cornwall by Irish journalist Liam Mac Gabhann. In July 1961, 47 years to the day after the gun-running, it was sailed into Howth by a combined Naval Service/Slua Muirí crew.

In 1969, then finance minister Charles J Haughey supported the establishment of Coiste an Asgard, and the yacht was commissioned as Ireland’s first official sail training vessel by Erskine Hamilton Childers, son of the original owner.

It was replaced in 1974 by the Creidne, and spent many years languishing in Kilmainham Gaol. A bid to return it to sea was the subject of some controversy, but three years ago a project manager was appointed for its conservation.