"May I have the shipping books, please, granny?" the small boy used to ask. The books were about 18th- and 19th-century craft, and he remembers one very dramatic picture of a sailing ship sinking, writes Lorna Siggins.
"It got into my head, altogether," he recalls, and he used to dream that he was in this vessel in heavy seas, and it was about to go down with all hands, and he would take control of the crisis. Rowing boats would be mustered, all lives would be saved, and he would wake from his reverie.
The passion remained, and at the age of 17 he ran away to sea. Almost nine decades later, that small boy's memories of his first interest in things maritime has been recorded on disc. Indeed, it would take a double compact disc, and more, to document the many and diverse interests of one of Europe's leading maritime historians, Dr John de Courcy Ireland, who is now living in a nursing home in Clonskeagh, south Dublin - several miles inland and away from his beloved Dalkey.
His birth in India, his childhood and his close relationship with his granny from Galway, his experiences as a teenage member of a ship's crew, his studies at Oxford, his first contact with his beloved wife to be, Bet, their early married years in Co Donegal and Derry, the time he was dismissed for trying to form a branch of the Amalgamated Transport and General Workers' Union - the first three decades alone presented a challenge to the disc's producer, Luke Verling.
Then there was his involvement with the great union leader, Jim Larkin, Dr Ireland's views on the maritime dimension to the 1916 Easter Rising, his South American heroes, his contacts with China (where his father is buried), his work with the Royal National Lifeboat Institution, his international awards for his research, and his repeated attempts to raise awareness about the wealth of Ireland's offshore resources.
Nevertheless, Verling and his team have compiled an account which is, in itself, a voyage through Irish and European history, both political and maritime. In his own introduction, entitled "Summing it all up (or trying to)", Dr Ireland recalls that bleak time when he and Bet were facing penury in Derry over his union activities, and how Bet was preparing a Christmas meal "entirely of potatoes" when there was a knock at the door.
"The entire workforce from the Foyle mouth had come and brought a wooden box packed with coins and notes," he recalls. "It was the most dramatic and moving event of my career. We had not only money for Christmas, but the price of an Irish Times. I scanned it for job vacancies and there was just one for which I was qualified - one that I had sworn never to attempt, so horrible had school been to me - for a teacher in Dublin."
The CD, which is supported by the Heritage Council, Marine Institute, Bord Iascaigh Mhara and Murray Ó Laoire Architects, comprises extracts from Dr Ireland's written works read by the actor Barry McGovern, and interviews with the man himself. It was officially "launched" recently by Admiral Françoise Bellec, acting chairman of the Institute de Marine, Paris, at a reception in the Stena Line ferry terminal, Dun Laoghaire. The Seafaring Irish - A life of John de Courcy Ireland is produced by Earth Productions, 2 Waterloo Avenue, Dublin 3, at €17.95; it is available currently in Easons and other bookshops, or by telephoning (01) 8553282, or e-mailing earthpros@eircom.net.
Dr Ireland wouldn't need much prompting to recall the fact that tomorrow is a very special double birthday - the centenary of the lighting of the Fastnet Rock lighthouse off Co Cork, and the tenth anniversary of the Mizen Head Signal Station Visitor Centre. To mark the double event, the Mizen Tourism Co-operative Society's management committee is hosting an open day at the signal station.
Sue Hill, dynamic founder of the visitor centre, has drawn up a series of events for the afternoon at Ireland's most southerly point, starting at 2 p.m. First, a commemorative roll call of the Fastnet Rock lightkeepers will be unveiled. There will also be a dedication ceremony for a plaque commemorating the SS Irada, which was carrying a cargo of cotton from Galveston, Texas, to Liverpool when it was wrecked on the cliffs north of Mizen on December 22nd, 1908.
The captain, four men and a stewardess on the 501-foot ship were lost, but workmen building the arched bridge at Mizen rescued the rest of the crew up the cliffs. Much of the ship and its cargo were salvaged, but the ten-ton propeller had to be let go. It sank to the depths some 500 yards offshore, where it lay until 1990 when it was found by Michael Barry, Catherine Arundel and Simon Nelson of Schull, Co Cork and was subsequently raised by the Irish Lights tender Granuaile and members of the West Cork Sub-Aqua Club.
A three-disc DVD recording this and other events associated with Mizen will also be released. The five hours' viewing includes archival material on the Irish lighthouse service, eight RTÉ programmes including reports by Tom MacSweeney on RTÉ television's Nationwide and RTE radio's Seascapes, Norris Davidson's The Land is the Danger, and Brian Cleeve's Discovery about the Irish Lights, and two programmes on Mizen Head and the Irish Lights service produced by Tish Barry.
There will also be two exhibitions - one of Irish Lights archive photos recording the construction of Fastnet Rock lighthouse, and one of lighthouse photos from around the coastline, taken by John Eagle. All former keepers, widows and families are invited to join in the celebrations, and among those who have confirmed attendance will be members of the Kavanagh family whose grandfather, James Kavanagh, was the foreman during the building of the Fastnet Rock light.
The commemorative DVD is available from the Mizen Head Signal Station Visitors' Centre at €49.95. The centre is open through the summer from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m., seven days a week. Contact www.mizenhead.net or telephone (028) 35115.