AN IRISHWOMAN'S DIARY

Dreamship. No other word could quite describe the wedding gift from the bride's father. The design's theme was "harmonious compromise". At 51 feet long, it was a comely vessel with a rounded hull that was built to last. In bad weather, it conveyed security. In good conditions, it could "ghost along in light airs". The master builder, Colin Archer, was in his twilight years. Named Asgard, after the Norse home of the gods, the white yacht was to be his finest creation.

On the last day of August, 1905, the newly married couple had their first sail. The following summer, they set off on their first long cruise. Less than a decade later, with several journeys to the Baltic in its wake, the ship was to become this island's best known gun-runner. But by 1922, the idealistic young skipper was to receive few thanks for his pains. Denounced as an enemy of the new republic, he was to be shot dead.

Shameful event

So writes Winkie Nixon, acknowledged as one of Europe's leading yachting journalists, in his recollection of one of those most shameful events in recent Irish history - the execution of Erskine Childers. You know the story: son of an English Oriental scholar; reared by his mother's Anglo-Irish family in Wicklow after both parents died of tuberculosis; educated in an English public school; served in the Boer War; wrote the classic thriller Riddle of the Sands; moved from a unionist background to become a fervent supporter of Home Rule; was dispatched in 1914 with tea-taster and journalist Darrell Figgis to Hamburg to buy arms; collected the munitions along with fellow sailor Conor O'Brien off the Belgian coast . . .

Nixon's account of the gun-running is carried in Howth: A Centenary of Sailing, a fascinating 521page tome commissioned and published by Howth Yacht Club. Misleadingly titled - for it is far more than a sports club history, and covers everything from Howth's birth as a "sea-minded place" to the peregrinations of many of its residents - the book pays due tribute to the two remarkable women on Childers's crew: Molly, his American wife, and Mary Spring Rice, who logged the adventures in "gossipy style". The final passage from Holyhead to Howth was a very rough beat, Nixon writes. The crew, living in unbelievably cramped conditions above the guns and ammunition for 10 days, was under considerable stress. In spite of their exhaustion, Childers and company displayed "seamanlike brilliance" in manoeuvring the engine-less ketch in a fresh northwesterly onto a mooring at the harbour mouth and then alongside the east pier. Molly was at the helm. Only the Volunteers on the quayside made things that bit more difficult. In the confusion, they tore the main sail. Hard to believe that just eight years later Childers the hero should become "the scapegoat for everyone's hatred" in the new republic, when he was executed for possession of a small hand-gun given to him by his former friend, Michael Collins

Pistol discovered

Two years ago, the .32 Spanish automatic pistol, bearing the inscription "Destroyer" on its barrel, was discovered by Mrs Rita Childers, his daughter-in-law, in an Italian walnut cabinet at her south Dublin home. She presented it to Colonel John P. Duggan on behalf of the Defence Forces for eventual display in the new National Museum premises at Collins Barracks. And the former owner's vessel? Still in one piece, though languishing up at Kilmainham Gaol for the last 20 years since it was replaced as the State's sail training ship and became a "national monument".

But the Asgard is also very much alive in the minds of some enthusiasts who would like to see it back on the water again. As reported earlier this year in this newspaper, a steering group known as the Asgard Restoration Project submitted a proposal to the former Minister for Arts, Culture and the Gaeltacht, Michael D. Higgins. It argued that its historical significance and its design merited much more the "national embarrassment" it had become. Such treatment undermined our credentials as a maritime nation, it was pointed out.

The proposal received the support of such worthies as Dr John de Courcy Ireland, maritime historian; Tim Severin, author and adventurer; and Dr Peter Harbison, archaeologist and author. Yet it appeared to fall on deaf ears. It seemed that there were other plans afoot - namely to conserve the ship, for eventual relocation to Collins Barracks.

Restore or conserve?

Restoration could involve extensive replacement of the original timber, which has shrunk, while conservation would preserve it in its original state, the Minister's department argued. Even though the Heritage Council favoured the restoration group's idea, it seemed as if the vessel was to be consigned to a glass case. A big ship in a bottle.

However, the news now is that all is not lost. The restoration group appealed to the actual owner of the Asgard, the Minister for Defence, before the general election. The outgoing minister, Sean Barrett, expressed his support. The acknowledged expert on Colin Archer-designed craft, David Cox, was commissioned to carry out a survey. It has been completed and is believed to suggest that the ship is seaworthy, and that much of its original pitch pine planking could be kept. Only some more recent woodwork appears to be suspect.

Tim Magennis, public relations officer for the group, doesn't want to hold his breath. But who knows: when Asgard marks its own centenary in seven years' time, it may do so with further Baltic trips and several circumnavigations of this island to its credit. And a healthy skirt of seaweed on its hull.