Sir, – Further to “1923 in 23 Objects” (May 2nd), the Helga was a purpose-built research and fishery protection vessel, built in Dublin in 1908 on the order of the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction for Ireland.
She was civilian manned, owned and operated. She had extensive equipment, laboratories and accommodation for marine scientists.
She had a small gun which fired solid shot for the recognised maritime signal of a “shot across the bows”.
She was one of the finest such research vessels of her time, and the Canadian government ordered a similar vessel. Ireland wasn’t to have such an excellent marine research vessel again until recent years.
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In 1917 she was “taken up” by the Admiralty with most of her crew and commissioned as an “armed patrol yacht”.
She was armed with a naval 12-pounder gun, radio, various signalling equipment and extra naval crew. A naval officer was put in command over her normal captain. She was part of the anti-submarine patrol to protect the mail-boat service between Kingstown and Holyhead.
In Easter Week 1916 she was in the Liffey supporting British army activities in suppressing the Rising; her bombardment of Liberty Hall is mentioned in most accounts of the Rising.
1919 saw her restored to her previous condition and returned to her owners, the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction. With the establishment of the Irish Free State in 1923 the Department of Agriculture and Technical Instruction almost seamlessly became the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries with little effect on the Helga.
During the Civil War period, she was taken up by the National Army, as were many other civilian ships, mainly to transport troops and military supplies around the coast.
In 1924, after a protracted repair session in a Belfast dockyard, she emerged as Muirchú and resumed her duties in the Department of Agriculture and Fisheries. Research work continued. The Irish researchers Drs Went and Farren were eminent internationally for their work on the marine life of the Eastern North Atlantic. Fishery protection for a single ship became increasingly ineffective and frustrating.
In 1936, new fishery regulations were promulgated and a second vessel, the chartered deep-sea trawler Fort Rannoch was acquired to help enforce them. Muirchú was allowed to mount her small gun again, it had been removed in 1924 “for fear of an international incident”!
In 1940 both vessels were taken over by the Defence Forces armed and commissioned as “public armed ships”.
Most of their crews were taken into the newly formed Marine and Coast Watching Service. Both vessels patrolled dangerous waters in those years, with a flotilla of six motor torpedo boats and a few other small craft.
1946 saw the formation of the Naval Service as a component of the Permanent Defence Forces. Fort Rannoch was sold and resumed a fishing career. Muirchú was sold for scrap.
By now being in a poor state or repair she was patched up in Rushbrooke Dockyard for her trip around to the Hammond Lane scrap yard in Dublin.
A small crew were hired for the trip and Brian Inglis, a reporter for this paper, went to record the last voyage of the ship.
As she made her way along the coast in increasingly bad weather it was discovered that she was taking water more than the pumps could cope with. Off the Saltees, it was decided to abandon ship. This was done with some difficulty in two boats, without injury. The crew were taken aboard the British trawler Ellesmere which then had to leave the scene. Inglis describes how the decks were almost awash as they left but nobody saw Muirchú actually sink.
It was many years later when James Kehoe, a Wexford diver, found the wreck. It was a more fitting end for a fine ship. – Yours, etc,
DAIRE BRUNICARDI,
(Author of The Seahound,
the Story of an Irish Ship),
Fermoy,
Co Cork.