Maolra Seoighe. A story of survival against the odds.

 Draft 4

Death on Galway Bay. 

The winter storms that are a constant feature of West of Ireland life had been battering the Aran Islands during the Christmas season of 1927. A break of a day or two was not unusual but in a time before highly accurate weather forecasts, venturing out for a spot of fishing was always fraught with risk.

A break in the weather persuaded three Iaráirne men to head out to sea at 6am on the morning of Friday December the 30th, 1927.

It was dark when the three men lifted their currach from its ‘frapaí’ among the sand dunes above Trá na Ladies and carried it down to the sea. This sandy shore runs parallel to the main runway at Cill Éinne airport. They would not have known how long they would be out as this depended on how much herring they would find in their drift net. 

Bird tracks at Trá na Ladies

Cuan Chill Éinne was a great spot for herring in those years and small boats had a good chance of making a big haul in the sheltered bay. Currachs had a distinct advantage when the herring moved into shallow waters, close to land. Many islanders can still remember carts loaded with herring heading across the island in the 1950s, selling as they went.

The three men who set out that morning were Pat Conneely aged forty eight and married with eight children, Michael Burke aged twenty seven and married with three children and the unmarried Maolra Seoighe (Myles Joyce) who was aged thirty two. Both Pat and Michael had an infant child at home. 

Their good luck in striking a fine shoal would by outdone by much bad luck as the whole expedition turned to disaster. By 9am they had caught around three thousand fish and decided to head for Connemara and sell their catch. In view of the bad spell of weather over the Christmas, fresh fish would be in short supply all around the coast as many boats were tied up in harbour. 

The need to row to Connemara would have been unnecessary a few years previously, after a very helpful island fishing co-op had been established in 1915. Then, fishermen were guaranteed sale for their fish but this experiment collapsed after the return of British boats post World War 1 and after the founder, Fr. Murty Farragher, had been transferred to Athenry. 

(Many thanks to John Bhaba Jack Ó Conghaile)

It’s likely there was a glut of herring for local consumption, which prompted the three men to head for the mainland. While large quantities were home salted in barrels, there was a limit to local demand.

Newspapers reported that giving evidence some days later, Myles Joyce recalled how it had taken them until 4pm to reach Connemara and sell their fish. This newspaper report is probably incorrect, as even with such a large amount of fish and wet nets, a currach leaving Árainn at 9am, with three experienced oarsmen, would have made the crossing before or shortly after midday.

Sruthán Pier in the 1990s. (John Hinde)

They came ashore at Sruthán pier which is about a mile east of An Cheathrú Rua (Carraroe) and opposite the fishing/ferry port of Ros an Mhíl. For their efforts they received three pounds and ten shillings and after having some tea, bread and butter, decided to head back for home. Allowing for almost a hundred years of inflation, this would represent about €275 today. 

Showing the port of Ros an Mhíl in the distance. (Photo Michael Harpur.)

 As far as we can tell the breeze was blowing from the Northeast and  it was a long journey to attempt on a wintry afternoon. However, the hugely reduced weight after offloading the fish may have given them confidence. The threat of being marooned on the mainland may also have been a factor. 

Tide Table for December 1927

It seems the Connemara people had advised them to wait until the next day but one of the men was anxious to set off. Despite the fading light they would have been confident that the powerful Lighthouse on Óileán an Tuí would guide them safely home. 

 At about 5pm, as darkness fell, the little boat was struck by a powerful and bitterly cold squall. At this stage they were about two or three miles from home and later it was reported that they had even been spotted by an island woman before the wind, sleet, fog and darkness descended.

A currach can withstand incredible weather just as long as it can avoid rocks and as long as the oarsmen can keep the head up in the wind. The fact that they had left in a hurry without food or water was now a serious problem. 

The three men battled fiercely to keep their little boat from being swamped, in wet and bitterly cold conditions. Myles would later recall that the squall did not last long but the lull that came after was accompanied by a thick bank of fog. 

While storms and rough seas were always unwelcome, nothing compared to the crippling effect of fog in the days before radar and satellite navigation.  

After rowing for hours, they at one stage spotted Ceann Gainimh (Sand Head) off Inis Meáin but before they could reach shore, the fog descended again.

Exhaustion from both the effort and the conditions led to Michael Burke collapsing to the floor of the currach, some believed, after he had lost an oar.  Some time later, Pat Conneely was similarly overcome and Myles Joyce continued to stay at his oars and try to keep the bow up to meet the waves. 

It was a bitterly cold time of the year with snow falling all over Ireland and further east, in England and Wales, rivers were reported to have frozen over for the first time in living memory. While the West of Ireland has generally milder temperatures, it has to contend with more frequent winter storms. 

According to Myles, he himself became exhausted some time after but luckily the storm had not returned and he remembered falling asleep at the oars. On waking, he touched the forehead of Pat Conneely but found it cold and guessed he had died. Calling out in the darkness to Michael Burke, there was no reply and Myles figured both men were dead. 

All day Saturday, New Year's Eve, the little boat drifted in foggy Galway Bay, with two dead men and a semi conscious survivor, lying on its sodden floor. At this stage Myles had almost given up hope of survival and felt he would soon join his two companions ‘Ar Slí na Fírinne’. The last day of the year looked like being his last day on Earth. 

Map of Galway Bay.

At about 1am on New Year’s Day, 1928, the currach finally drifted to land at Loughanbeag near Inverin and Myles Joyce crawled ashore. He was lucky the boat wasn’t smashed on the rocks as these shores had claimed many a fisherman in days gone by. We featured recently a story which mentioned a Claddagh boat belonging to the widow Hernon being lost, along with all aboard, around this area in January 1835.

Myles was unable to stand and was forced to crawl through a pool of water and then crawl again to a nearby house.

Seeking help, Myles knocked on the door of the first house he found but the family inside would not let him in. Those were hard times and the lawlessness that ensued during both the recent War of Independence and Civil War made people fearful of the knock on the door at night. One can appreciate their reluctance to open the door to a confused and bedraggled giant of a man at such a late hour. 

Myles was admitted at the next house and in later years he described just how poor the people were but little as they had, they shared with him.  They made him as comfortable as they could and summoned help. This was just a few years after the near famine conditions in parts of the West of Ireland, in 1924/25.

The family in the first house arrived and offered as much help as they  could. The innate hospitality of Connemara people is well known and they were extremely upset at having misread the situation when Myles had knocked at their own door.

This area had its own share  of tragedy just a few years before in June 1917, when nine men were killed after a WW1 mine, which came ashore on the beach, suddenly exploded.

Monument to 1917 disaster.

Radio transmission was in its infancy in 1927 and the recently arrived lifeboat would operate without one for the next ten years or so. When the men failed to return it was assumed that they had stayed in Connemara as their slow journey there would have been observed locally from the shore or they may have told other boats of their intentions. 

The recently established local lifeboat, RNLI William Evans, ran on petrol and had a top speed of just nine knots. On this occasion it was not called out but it would later however be involved in some daring rescues before being replaced in 1939 by the former Rosslare boat the K.C.E.F.

The authorities responded quickly and on January 2nd 1928, inquests were opened at Loughanbeag on the two dead islanders by the coroner, Solicitor John S Conroy of Dangan House in Galway. This was the same coroner who had presided at the inquest in 1924 into the drowning of Myles’ older brother Michael, who was lost off his fishing boat at Galway Docks. 

Amazingly, Myles Joyce gave evidence even though it was obvious to all present that he was still in a bad way after the horrendous experience, both physical and mental, he had endured less than two days previously. 

Myles was described as being ‘of splendid physique and standing about six feet three inches tall’. He was known on the islands as Myla Mór (Big Myles) which is no great surprise. His late son Myles was of equally magnificent physique but was known as Myleen Beag, or Little Myles. 

Part of a newspaper report in January 1928

The survival of Myles was extraordinary and can be put down to his great strength, youth and determination. He had served in the newly formed Irish Free State army in 1922 and it’s likely that his military training contributed to his ability to endure. 

Myles on left in his army uniform with Martin Conneely 

The medical evidence from Dr. Joseph Sexton of Spiddal was that the two men died from exposure. The court recommended that the fund established to assist the many families of the dozens drowned the previous October and known as the Cleggan disaster, be contacted with a view to extending their remit to cover this tragedy. 

A photo of Myles, taken shortly after the ordeal.

As far as we know, this never materialised and the Burke and Conneely families were never to be assisted by the fund. It’s likely that in the process of looking after the many families in West Connemara and West Mayo, the smaller Aran disaster was overlooked and fell between the cracks. 

At the time of the disaster, Myles was planning to emigrate to America and had made preparations by securing a passport in September 1927. Fate determined that he remain and some years later he married Sally Conneely from Inis Meáin with whom he had three children. 

In later years, Myles suffered from arthritis and deteriorating eyesight which was greatly contributed to, it’s  believed, by the thirty six hours he endured in freezing cold weather, in an open boat. In his last few years he was completely blind but could recognise every voice on the island.

Given his great physique, it’s likely that if Myles had managed to get to America he would have been a valued addition to the New York or Boston police or fire departments. Two of his brothers were policemen and served An Garda Siochána with distinction, while one brother and two sisters emigrated to America. 

The same fine Joyce physique will be remember by many in Galway  who saw Myles’ nephew, the late John Joyce, when he performed heroics on the rugby field while playing with Corinthians in the 1970s.

Myles returned to fishing not too long afterwards and being located at the eastern end of the island, was regularly called out to take passengers to the smaller islands. The priest and doctor were often aboard and especially the agricultural instructor, better known in Aran and Connemara as ‘fear na bhfataí’ (potatoes man).

Máire Joyce, as a young nurse in America

Máire spent many years nursing in America and is retired on Árainn now after returning to help set up the greatly needed nursing home on the island. 

Pádraig was a very successful fisherman and owner of first the MFV Carraig Éinne and later the MFV Colmcille before retiring and opening Pier House guesthouse with his wife Máire and their son Ronan. 

The youngest, Myleen Beag, died very young after a long illness, leaving behind his wife Neasa and their little daughter, Dearbhla.

We can still remember Myleen firing weights great distances at the local sports in a manner that reminded older islanders of the great strength of his late father. 

New Year’s Eve is a special day for us all and on every New Year’s Eve until his death in 1967, Myles Joyce remembered back to the New Year's Eve he spent in 1927, almost frozen to death, drifting with two dead comrades in Galway Bay. 

Michael F Muldoon September  2022

(We wish to thank Máire and Pádraic for the help given in the composing of this piece about their late father, Myles Seoighe.)

Ganly's Hotel guests in 1919.

 An open air sanatorium. 

Tourists boards pay writers to come up with fine words regarding tourist destinations but in 1919, a review of a holiday spent on the Aran Islands could not be bettered. That the reviewer was a politician, barrister and journalist, was of great benefit and that he had a reputation for being scrupulously honest and fearless, lent extra credibility to his remarks. 

In October 1919, a very important but sadly neglected figure from Irish history, Laurence Ginnell (1852-1923), spent some time recuperating in Árainn after a difficult few months in jail. He was  sixty eight years old and in poor shape but he credited his stay at Ganly’s Hotel in Cill Rónáin with restoring much of his vigour. 

Photo from 1906 by Jane Shackleton. Ganly's Hotel in the distance.

Ginnell was the serving MP for Westmeath since 1906 and had been prevented from attending the first  Dáil (1919-1921) in 1919 by virtue of his imprisonment. He had a lifelong reputation for being “difficult” but this word was and is, often used for somebody who doggedly sticks to principal and refuses to make compromises. 

His interventions in Westminster were legendary and he was a man to be wary of no matter what side of the political divide you came from. He had been expelled from the Irish Party in 1909 for asking awkward questions about finances and receipts. This was very similar to how Anna Parnell had been sidelined for doing the same to her brother’s Land League, some years previously.

 

Ginnell was to the House of Commons for much of the first two decades of the 20th century, what Dennis Skinner was to that same parliament, many decades later. Both refused to be silenced and proceeded from one suspension to the next. Larry had the extra distinction of being expelled from both the Commons and the Dáil. His Dáil expulsion was for asking awkward questions, when he was the only anti-treaty TD to attend the third Dáil in 1922. He was ejected before it could get underway for asking awkward questions before signing in. 

Laurence Ginnell was a founding member of the London branch of the Irish Literary Society. This branch  was very supportive of the Irish Literary society in Ireland and in particular, the newly formed Abbey Theatre.  A self educated man and son of a farm labourer, Laurence could speak several languages and was a highly skilled barrister and author of several books. 

After his release from Mountjoy prison in September 1919, Laurence and his equally gifted second wife, Alice King from near Mullingar, arrived on Árainn in October for a holiday. Booking into Ganly’s famous hotel, by all accounts they had a great time. 

On November 1st, the Galway Express newspaper carried a report on Ginnell’s account of his visit as well as his views on other matters. The interview was done at the Railway Hotel in Galway and the journalist involved was accompanied by the solicitor George Nicholls who was head of the IRB in Galway. George was a brother to the tragic Eibhlín Nicholls whom we mentioned previously as being a friend to the Islands nurse, Bridget Hedderman

According to the newspaper article, the Ginnell’s entry in the Ganly Hotel visitors book will be read with interest as long as the Hotel stands and the record remains. Here is what it said. 

‘Many more persons read of the antiquities of the Aran Islands than take the bother to visit them. The main attraction for visitors at present is to attain the Gaelic blas for which purpose Inish-meadhon is said to be the best of the islands. The antiquities and blas have valid claim on the attention of  all Irish people.

 But Aran has a stronger claim as a great natural sanitorium unadvertised and unbooned upon the overworked, the exhausted, the run down, upon all those whose health is impaired. 

In this condition I came and for the result, I shall ever feel grateful. It is much to be regretted that members of the medical profession do not frequent and experiment in Aran and diffuse its merits and the consequent blessing of good health, instead  of advising patients to waste time and money on so called foreign so-called health resort. 

Inishmore is the best for this purpose, affording the greatest scope and variety. So mild is the climate that there is rarely any frost or snow. Cows and calves are outdoor night and day, all year round. And even persons physically delicate can safely bathe in the open area in October. What must it be like in bounding Spring and glorious Summer. 

Rocks rocks certainly, is it any wonder that one loves Aran more every day, comes away from it with regret and longs for the opportunity of returning, when, while inhaling renewed health, he or she can examine and speculate upon the huge and mysterious Cyclopes forts of more than three thousand years old. The best preserved remains of that period extant in Europe or the numerous Christian temples, oratories, altars, graves, and holy wells of a later and milder date. 

And hear the same kindly greeting in the  same language and soothing voice as when the saints walked the isles. All not merely gratis but with modest pride and gratitude to one for asking guidance. 

While on Aran I have not heard an angry, not even a loud voice. When a health resort happens to be at the same time a place of scenic beauty and unique historical and religious interest. 

I must be understood as quite within the literal truth regarding Aran with combined love and reverence. Visitors have nothing to fear in the matter of accommodation and pure and wholesome food. 

Those whose health condition requires first class cooking, exquisite soups and meats, fish and fowl, prepared in the most tempting manner, dainty homemade cakes in endless variety and best quality and attendance equal to the best hotel anywhere, will act wisely in securing quarters in Ganly’s Hotel, Kilronan, Co Galway

Labhras MacFhionnghail

(Laurence Ginnell)

October 1919

Laurence Ginnell was a founding member of the United Irish League in 1898 which was a radical group who were willing to push for much more effective land distribution that the mainstream Home Rulers. It’s likely that Ginnell spent time with the Parish Priest, Murty Farragher, as Ganly’s and the presbytery were closely located. 

Fr Farragher was the leader of the UIL on the island, founding a branch in 1904. He had been accused by some of using it to advance his own cause after his house was bombed in 1908 and maintain a boycott he instigated afterwards. He organised a welcome rally for Laurence in the local church grounds. 

They may have had many things in common in 1919 but after the treaty, they ended up on different sides with Ginnell being fervently Anti-Treaty. He had been in Argentina during the Treaty debates promoting the Irish cause and was annoyed when he was prevented from registering his vote against the treaty, by cable. 

In the case of most politicians, it’s likely that mention of the bomb and boycott would be scrupulously avoided but going on Larry Ginnell’s record for very blunt talking in both the Dáil and the Commons, it’s highly likely that he dived right in with his friend, Murtagh Farragher. 

In the course of his 1919 interview he praised both the island and its Parish Priest, whom he rightly credited with being behind many improvements. He avoided going to see the ‘Blow Hole’ which he had been told was a ‘must see’. He noted that after his experiences in parliament and court he was very well acquainted with ‘blow holes’

Alice was a very gifted woman and spoke a number of languages. She had married Laurence when she was just nineteen and he was fifty and by all accounts they had a very happy marriage. A committed Suffragette and Republican, she probably was a positive influence on Laurence when he was one of only two members of the old Irish Party who supported votes for women from the outset. Some voted in favour later but both the Unionist Edward Carson and Nationalist John Redmond, were firmly against.

( Note. Redmond’s brother Willie was a strong supporter of women being given the vote. Willie was involved in getting the falsely imprisoned Islander, Bryan Kilmartin released in 1884. He was killed during WW1)

.Alice was very supportive of Laurence and at his sentencing for incitement on March 26th 1918 to six months imprisonment, caused a disturbance in court by waving a flag and shouting “Up the Republic”. She was supported in this by her friend Maude Gonne McBride. 

An R.I.C. Inspector recognised Alice Ginnell and ordered an unfortunate Constable to remove the two protesters, who were determined not to go. As he attempted to lay hands on the two women, fourteen year old Seán McBride, son to Maude, waded in and swung a few punches, both left and right, at the policeman and some detectives who came to assist, before all three were ejected. 

In December 1918, Alice recognised that the Westmeath election campaign for her imprisoned Laurence was being poorly organised. Taking on the role of official election agent herself, she became the first woman in Britain or Ireland to hold such a position. Her efforts helped greatly in getting her husband elected from his cell in Reading Goal.  

In recent years the important role the Ginnells played in Irish History has been acknowledged, with in particular, Paul Hughes at the Westmeath Examiner newspaper, highlighting the Ginnells contribution on a number of occasions.  

Laurence was in Washington rallying support for DeValera in April 1923 when he died suddenly at age 71. His widow Alice would live on to the great age of 87, dying in 1967. It’s hard not to wonder what a suffragette, feminist and Republican like Alice made of the new Irish state that she and Laurence had fought so selflessly for. 

Thomas Ganly died in 1926 and his widow, Ellen O’Flaherty Ganly, sold the hotel in 1956 and moved to live with her daughter, Anna Blacker, in Kildare. Some of our readers will remember this magnificent thatched hotel, renamed Lios Aengus, when it was run by the Concannon family until the mid 1960s. Today it’s the location for one of the islands finest guesthouses, Dormer House. 

Alas, Ganly’s hotel no longer stands but perhaps the visitors book from 1919 is still around somewhere. In any case, we can thank the Galway Express of 1919 for letting us know just how highly the Ginnells regarded the hospitality and health benefits of the Aran Islands. 

Our article focuses on the views on the island Laurence and Alice gave to the Galway Express on their way back from Aran in late October 1919. However, Alice would later recall that about a week after returning to the mainland, doctors ordered Laurence back to Aran where it appears they remained for a few months before going to Dublin in early March, 1920. 

Alice must have journeyed to the mainland on occasion because she stood unsuccessfully for Sinn Féin in the local elections for the Pembroke ward in January 1920 where one of the successful Unionist candidates was Samuel Beckett’s father, William. As there was a three way tie for the position of chairman, Alice, who was in attendance at the first council meeting, was asked to draw the winner from a hat. She duly drew out William Beckett. 

Laurence had probably exaggerated how well he had recovered in Aran in his November 1919 interview because, after his arrest in Dublin on March 26th 1920, he was released three days later as his health was so poor. 

The two doctors who vouched for his very poor health, and called for  his release from prison were Kathleen Lynn and George Sigerson. A sitting member of the 1st Dáil dying in prison, was to be avoided at all costs, it seems. 

Michael F Muldoon

May 2022

A Pre-Raphaelite in Árainn

  Doctor O’Brien and his powerful memory. 

While reading the very informative book Nobody’s Business, The Aran Diaries of Ernie O’Malley, we were interested greatly in his interactions with the island doctor James O’Brien (1883-1970), who served the three islands for over forty years. 

Ernie was a very famous rebel who had a great way with words and his unguarded diary entries, on the Ireland of the first half of the 20th century, are very insightful. The book is edited by his son Cormac O’Malley and Róisín Kennedy. 

Ernie’s casual account of his visits to the islands in the 40s and 50s, brings readers back to a world long gone. He was particularly friendly with Cill Rónáin man, Dr Séamus O’Brien, who was the son of John O’Brien and Margaret Hernon. His parents ran a pub and shop which some readers will remember as the late John Kenny’s ‘Lucky Star Bar’. 

In the course of the book, it was recorded by Dr O’Brien that the very famous English painter William Holman Hunt (1827-1910) had stayed in O’Briens once and that as far as Dr O’Brien could remember, he had once come across a painting by Hunt, of the head of an Aran boy, in some museum in Liverpool. 

Ernie was married to and had three children with, the very talented American artist, Helen Hooker O’Malley. 

Dr James O’Brien is remembered as a brilliant doctor, if a little eccentric, and he had a great interest in the arts. We can remember the late Brendán Ó hEithir mentioning how kind Dr O’Brien was when Brendán was a boy, in letting him borrow books from his extensive library. 

Ernie O’Malley had among his companions on Árainn the very famous Irish Painter, Charles Lamb (1893-1964) and he mentions how Charles’ wife was somehow related to some of the old Pre-Raphaelite crowd. 

William Holman Hunt was one of the seven original members of a school of painting known as the Pre-Raphaelites founded around 1848. 

The reference to Lamb’s wife being connected to this group is correct. Charles Lamb was married to the American, Katherine Madox Hueffer (1900-1978), who was a daughter of the famous English writer, Ford Madox Ford whose maternal grandfather was the Pre-Raphaelite painter, Ford Madox Brown. 

It seems no record of William Hunt ever having visited Árainn could be found and the possibility of Dr O’Brien being mistaken, had to be considered as he was very young at the time of Hunt’s alleged visit. 

It was only when we were doing some research on the efforts in the 1890s by Fr Michael O’Donahoe, (of Cill Rónáin cross fame) to raise funds for new boats, that we came across a reference to William Hunt. 

One of the stated aims of the Pre-Raphaelite Brotherhood was to…….STUDY NATURE ATTENTIVELY, SO AS TO KNOW HOW TO EXPRESS IT.

It’s no great surprise then, to discover that Hunt spent a month on the island in the company of a very famous Cambridge zoologist, Harold Hulme Brindley (1865-1944). Harold was following in the footsteps of another great Cambridge man, the botanist Cardale Babington, who had attended the great Dún Aengus Banquet in1857. 

In a letter to the papers in February 1892, Harold Brindley mentions the great friendship he and William Holman Hunt established with Fr Michael O’Donohoe during their time on the island in the summer of 1888. A hungry year which we dealt with before when documenting the visit of Michael Davitt and his efforts at Relief. Harold donated a pound towards the fishing fund. 

Dr O’Brien would have been just five years old when Brindley and Hunt stayed in his home.

William Holman Hunt is famous in Protestant religious life for his two iconic paintings, Light of the World and The Shadow of  Death.

 His ‘Light Of The World’ was often reproduced in stained glass, in Anglican Church windows. 

Shadow of Death exhibited to huge crowds in Belfast and Dublin in 1875. Holman Hunt’s third and final version is now in the Art Institute of Chicago 

William Hunt is famous also for some non religious paintings. Here are examples of two, which feature a mistress getting up from the lap of her wealthy lover and a rosy cheeked shepherd attempting to seduce a young shepherdess. 

This entire article is an example of how going down one road can soon see one heading off down inviting boreens and the main story of the financing of boats in 1892, must be left for another day. 

We almost started detailing some of the great paintings of the Connemara based Portadown man, Charles Lamb, but that would take forever.

 Indeed it might lead on to us mentioning one of the great heroes of Irish nature studies of our youth, Charles Lamb’s son-in-law, the late  Éamon de Buitléar and his 60s TV programme ‘Amuigh Faoin Spéir’

Or even a mention of Fr Ted’s Craggy Island and Fargo Boyle  of the champion sheep competition. Fargo was played by one of Ireland’s most distinguished stage, film and TV actors, the late Peadar Lamb (1930-2017), a son of Charles.

(Time to stop.)

M Muldoon January 2022