As part of our Grace O’Malley Fleet, Leader is one of the last surviving Brixham Trawlers built in 1892. She is the largest ever built and the links between Brixham and Ringsend in Dublin are strong and date back to the golden years of the sailing trawlers from Ringsend. Here is an article by the renowned maritime historian and artist, Cormac Lowth, who has permitted us to share this story.
Ringsend is a maritime village on the south side of the River Liffey in Dublin, near the heart of Dublin Port. Throughout most of the nineteenth century, and into the twentieth, a large fleet of sailing beam-trawlers was based there. This fleet of fishing vessels, which were collectively referred to as Smacks, and their methods of operation, was to exist in an almost unchanged state for about one hundred years. The activities of these vessels, which began in Dublin about 1819, and finished up just after the First World War, have gone largely unrecorded, and, unlike sailing trawlers in many British ports during the same period, which were extensively photographed, the Ringsend trawling fleet seems to have generally escaped the attentions of the photographers of the day. Photographic images of the trawlers and those who were associated with them are extremely rare. There are some in the collections of the National Library of Ireland but they are incidental to the main subject matter in most cases. There are also some images in existence that were painted or drawn by various marine artists who favored the trawlers as subject matter for their artistic works. Some of these artists include, Richard Brydges Beechey, a retired Naval Officer who lived in Kingstown, Matthew Kendrick, who at one time fished on the Grand Banks of Newfoundland and was keeper of paintings at the Royal Hibernian Academy, Edwin Hayes who was also at one time a seaman. In 1845, this artist owned a pub in Thorncastle Street in Ringsend called the Bayview Tavern. Alexander Williams was perhaps the artist who created the most images of the sailing trawlers, both in his paintings, and in an extensive archive of his sketchbooks. There are also many images of the early sailing trawlers in Ringsend in the Brocas collection of sketches in the National Library of Ireland.
The era of trawling under sail from Ringsend had begun with the formation of a Fishery Company in 1818 by a group of enterprising Dublin businessmen, in order to exploit the rich fishing grounds off the East Coast of Ireland. The company invited investment by issuing shares. They bought large sailing smacks, of a type that were then unknown in Dublin, from Brixham in Devon, on the south coast of England. These vessels fished with large beam trawls. The fishery Company hired men from Brixham to come to Dublin to man the fishing boats, and while the Fishery Company folded up in 1830, most of the original crews and skippers, and their families, stayed and settled in Ringsend. Many of The records of the Dublin Fishery Company are still in existence in the National Archives. The Company had initially purchased seven boats in England and they had one built in Dublin. In 1818, there was a system of government subsidies available for fishermen, both for the purchase of boats and for tonnage of fish landed. These were withdrawn around the time that the Company ceased to exist and this may have been a contributory factor in its demise. It has been stated that there was widespread fraudulent abuse of the system in Ireland. Some of the personnel who had worked for the Fishery Company bought out the boats at the time of the closure and continued to operate from Ringsend. By the 1830s, the Ringsend fleet had increased to about fifty boats.
In the ensuing decades many more similar crews and their boats, some built in Brixham and some in Ringsend, were to follow the example that was set by these early fishing immigrants. There was a constant interchange of boats and people between Brixham and Ringsend that lasted until the demise of the sailing trawlers in the first quarter of the Twentieth Century. Many of the Devon immigrants intermarried with each other, but many more intermarried with the locals. Numerous descendants of this fishing community still live in the Ringsend area and many of the names of these still reflect the unique connection with Devon.
The Brixham trawlers that arrived in Dublin early in the Nineteenth Century averaged about forty tons. All were single-masted cutters with gaff rigs and they were fully decked. They had a considerable advantage over other fishing boats then in use as they had hand-operated mechanical winches fitted which were used to haul in the trawls.
There is no doubt that some trawling took place on the east coast of Ireland prior to the arrival of the boats from Brixham. Many of the boats that were engaged in trawling were based in Skerries and there were some also in Ringsend. All of these vessels were of a different type to the Brixham trawlers and they were described under the generic heading of Wherries. Most were either lugger-rigged or had a mixture of gaff and lug sails. They were mainly un-decked boats. Trawling was done on a seasonal basis as the majority of boats were also engaged either in long lining or in the herring fishery. Although beam trawls were used by them, they did not have any mechanical winches on board and the trawls were hauled on board laboriously by hand. Being mostly open boats without decking, they could not venture out to sea in the type of weather that would have caused no problems to the Brixham boats, and their activities were confined to more inshore regions. There are records of some quite large luggers being owned in Skerries, some up to fifty tons, however, they were not as suited to trawling as the large decked-in boats from Brixham. The standard crew on the Brixham type trawlers was three men and a boy, and this remained so until the very end of the sail trawling era. The local wherries usually carried a crew of at least eight.
There were also differences in the type of trawls that were in use. The beams of the Irish trawl nets were somewhat lighter than their English counterparts and the back of the bag-shaped net or ‘cod-end’ was shorter in the local boats. Also, the Irish nets did not have pockets that ran up the sides of the net from the cod-end. These helped to contain any fish which might have been inclined to swim out of the net after having entered it. A beam trawl consisted of a heavy wooden beam with a forged iron shoe at either end. The net itself was in the shape of a funnel with the top of the mouth of the net tied to the wooden beam. The bottom of the mouth of the net had a weighted foot-rope attached that dragged along the bottom and disturbed the fish which then swam into the net. While many of the Irish fishermen who trawled were ultimately to acquire boats similar to the English vessels, and to adopt their fishing methods, the English trawler-men were quick to adopt a method of trawling that was practiced by their Irish counterparts. Up to the time that the boats arrived in Dublin from Brixham, it was standard practice for them to shoot the trawl with the beam athwart the boat at the stern. When it was not in use it was stored on the deck. The Irish boats carried the beam on the side of the boat and the net was shot from there. The English fishermen realized that this was a handier way of fishing and adopted the method. This in turn quickly spread to most of the trawling ports in Britain, and thereafter the beams and the nets were carried on the port side rail and shot and hauled from there.
In the early years after the arrival of the English fishermen and their boats there was quite a good deal of animosity shown towards them by the local fishermen. This sometimes manifested itself with acts of violence and threatening behavior, with some of the trawlers being boarded at sea by the locals, who destroyed some trawling gear. The Ringsend fleet was sometimes accompanied to sea at this period by the armed revenue cutter and there were some prosecutions. Many of the local fishermen however were quick to adopt the fishing methods and to acquire similar boats for themselves. In the early years of the Ringsend sailing trawlers they tended to moor in a part of the port that was known as Halpin’s Pond, This was on the north side of the port in the area now taken up by Alexandra Basin. In 1837, the stretch of water on the south side of the river along the Pigeonhouse Road, was deepened and was designated as the Trawlers Pond or Pool. It was then a relatively exposed anchorage and there are several accounts of trawlers being sunk or damaged whenever strong easterly winds blew up. This area is now taken up by the moorings of the Poolbeg Yacht and Boat Club.
With their superior boats and fishing methods, the Ringsend fishermen were able to exploit some of the offshorefishing grounds that had never been fished previously. Having closed decks, and cabins below, they could fish in virtually any weather conditions. It has been stated that when fishing,they were at their best when towing a trawl in a force four to five wind. Their mechanical winches allowed them to fish in much greater depths than their local counterparts. They fished in an area that takes in the triangle described by the Baily at Howth, to the Calf of man, and the ‘Mountain Foot, or the sea opposite the Mountains of Mourne. Many previously rare species soon became plentifully available on the Dublin market, such as large Brill and Turbot, and Black Soles. These were greatly sought after and commanded excellent prices. Plaice were extremely plentiful on the new fishing grounds. Many people will have heard the name Raytown used in connection with old Ringsend. Ray, while being plentiful tended to receive poor prices in the fish market and it was almost regarded as a bye-catch. When left for any length of time this species of fish tends to become very odoriferous, with a strong smell of urea or ammonia. In the days before mechanical refrigeration this was a problem and in most cases, ray was disposed of to hawkers, to be sold on the streets from barrows, In addition, whenever the fishermen would bring home a hank of fish after a voyage, it would have been comprised of the cheaper fish, so ray would have formed a part of the staple diet locally. With the advent of the first fish and chip shops in Dublin at the beginning of the Twentieth Century, ray was purchased and sold as it was among the cheapest of fish, however, coated in batter and fried, it soon appealed to the taste buds of the public, and prices for ray began to climb somewhat. The Natural History Museum in Dublin has a collection of very large preserved specimens of fish that originated with the Ringsend trawlers. The fishermen were requested by the Biology Department of Trinity College to bring any large or unusual specimens to them. The collection was ultimately given by them to the Natural History Museum.
Many of the smacks were individually owned and skippered by the owners. There were also some non-fishing owners who owned several smacks. The standard crew of three men and a boy were rewarded on a share basis. The proceeds of the catch were divided into eight shares. The owner received four shares, the skipper got one and a half shares, the two crewmen got a share each, and the boy got a half share. The owner paid for all of the equipment such as nets and ropes, and repairs to the boat, from his shares.
The trawlers usually towed the net with the wind and tide if feasible. The net was towed with a heavy single cable or warp which was about seven inches in circumference. This was stowed below in a hold behind the mast when not in use. When shooting the trawl, the net was streamed and the fore end of the beam was let off until it was at right angles to the line of the boat. The entire rig was then lowered to the seabed. The net was usually towed for about four hours. When hauling, the warp was led over the bow roller and the boat was brought up into the wind. They would then tack forward and recover the warp with the winch until the beam was alongside, when it was stowed along the rail. After this the net was hauled in by hand until the cod-end was reached and hauled aboard by the winch, and the fish spilled onto the deck. The net was shot again quickly and the fish were then gutted and sorted. Many of the boats fished alone, but the practice of ‘fleeting’ was sometimes also used, This involved several boats fishing in close proximity and transferring their catches to a single boat, which then headed back to port, to get the fish to market quickly. In the latter decades on the Nineteenth Century, ice became readily available and a couple of tons would be loaded into the hold before a voyage. This enabled the boats to stay at sea for a longer period and to keep the catch in fresh condition. The author has compiled a list of twenty-eight Ringsend trawlers that were lost. The vast majority of these were sunk in collision with steamships or were destroyed by fire. The ubiquitous use of tar aboard a wooden vessel to coat nets, warps, and planking, and the use of coal-fired stoves and capstans, made the risk of fire a constant hazard. Very few foundered in bad weather. It is significant that during the great gale of 1861, when ships were being wrecked all over the east coast of Ireland and several ships were wrecked both outside, and within the confines of, Kingstown Harbour, that a Ringsend smack made its way along the coast from the vicinity of Bray Head, and successfully came to anchor in Kingstown Harbour. Kingstown was frequently used by the trawlers as a landing place and an anchorage, but few trawlers were owned there. There was a strong relationship between the smack fishermen and the owners of some of the large gaff-rigged cutter yachts that existed in the yacht clubs in Kingstown. The smack crewmen frequently acted as paid hands aboard where their expertise
In gaff-rigged sailing was invaluable. Many a smack owner and skipper was forced to languish in port with his vessel until his crew had returned from a lucrative yachting race or cruise.
Several Royal Commissions of Enquiry were convened throughout the century and various witnesses gave evidence as to the state of the fisheries in Ireland including several from Ringsend. Even before the advent of motorized trawling there was much divided opinion and some acrimonious debate about the harmful effects of trawling upon the fish stocks, and the ‘destruction of spawn’. There was extensive line fishing carried out on the coast of Dublin and there were apparently large shoals of fish which have now largely disappeared from the same waters such as Ling, Cod and Haddock. There were many complaints that the trawlers were destroying the long-lines of the fishermen. Laws were passed prohibiting trawling within the confines of certain bays around the coast. In 1842, a law came into being that banned trawling in Dublin Bay, inside a line from the Baily at Howth to Sorrento Point at Dalkey. This law was rather mysteriously revoked around the time that some group was seeking planning permission to site an Oil Refinery in Dublin Bay. This application was thankfully refused, but it has left a situation whereby the largest trawler in the State could come into Dublin Bay and scrape it clean, all day, every day, with impunity.
In addition to the actual fishing, there existed in Ringsend throughout the Nineteenth and into the Twentieth centuries, a large number of ancillary trades and industries that operated in support of the trawling operations. There were boat-builders, sawyers, sail-makers, rope-makers, net-makers, and blacksmiths. Much of the east bank of the River Dodder, from Ringsend Bridge to the start of the Great South Wall at the place known as the Point, where the Dodder enters the River Liffey, was taken up by boat building yards. These existed at the back of the buildings along the length of Thorncastle Street. Practically all of these were swept away from the 1930s onwards when the area was compulsorily acquired by the Dublin Corporation for the building of the present blocks of flats that now occupy the site. Only one boatyard remained after this as the last survivor. This was Harry Smith’s boatyard and it closed sometime in the 1960s. Another well-known old Ringsend boat-building yard that had survived into the twentieth century fell victim to the Corporation clearances with a compulsory purchase order. This was Murphy’s yard, which at the time of its demise was owned by Joe Murphy, a renowned boat-builder and shipwright, who was the descendent of several generations of Ringsend boat-builders, who had both built and owned many Ringsend sailing trawlers. Joe Murphy was reluctantly forced to close down his boatyard, which has been the subject of a famous woodcut by the artist Harry Kernoff, and he subsequently became a shipwright in the Dublin Port and Docks Board. Joe also became a diver in the Port and he had the distinction of being the last working foreman in the Port diving bell, which was invented by the port Engineer Bindon Blood Stoney, for the building of the deep water berths in the Nineteenth Century. This bell can be seen in a restored condition on Sir John Rogerson’s Quay. Joe spent much of his retirement in sharing his extensive skill, and knowledge of traditional wooden boatbuilding with several groups who were building traditional style wooden sailing boats called Galway Hookers. In doing this he was passing on much of the accumulated knowledge and abilities of generations of Ringsend boat-builders.
The boatyards had slipways that led down to the Dodder and many of these are marked on the early Ordnance Survey maps. Some also show features such as saw-pits. In addition to the boatbuilding yards, the bank of the Dodder was home to most of the Dublin Rowing Clubs from the early years of the Nineteenth Century. These clubs had their clubhouses and stores interspersed with the boatyards and most of these also had wide wooden slipways. Many of the remains of the boatyards and rowing club slipways can still be seen on the bank of the Dodder today, which give only a small clue to the thriving hive of boat-building and rowing activity that once took place along the now deserted muddy bank.
The connection with Brixham and other places in Devon remained strong throughout the entire period in which the fleet of sailing smacks existed in Ringsend, and many of the trawlers were built directly for the owners in yards in Brixham, and in Galmpton, which is a small port on the River Dart. Many more were bought from Devon that had been previously owned there. Equally, a great many of the smacks that fished out of Dublin Port were built in Ringsend, most of these on the bank of the Dodder. Some of the Dublin built sailing smacks were constructed in drydocks in the Grand Canal Basin in the middle years of the Nineteenth Century by John and Matthew Good who were listed as Ship Builders at 49 and 50 City Quay, and at the Graving dock, Ringsend. John Good was the owner of several of the Ringsend smacks and he wrote a paper about the sail-trawling fishery which he delivered to the Natural History Society on May 3rd, 1861. The entire corner of Ringsend, known as The Point, where the River Dodder flows into the Liffey, was once taken up by the Brunswick Boatyard. This was started by another Ringsend boat and ship builder of renown, Henry Teall. The yard boasted a patent slip, a saw pit and a steam chest. Many of the Ringsend smacks were built there. The yard was taken over by the partnership of Smith and Scallon and later by Michael Scallon alone, and in addition to fishing smacks, a great many private yachts were built, both here, and in some of the other yards along the dodder. When Michael Scallon died in 1886, the site of the Brunswick boatyard was taken over by the Hibernian Glass Bottle Works, It is still possible to trace the outline of the spot where the patent slip was filled in at this time.
At the zenith of the sail-trawling era, around 1879 in Ringsend there were more than sixty trawlers owned there. By my estimation, there were approximately two hundred and fifty sailing trawlers owned in Ringsend during the hundred years of the existence of the fleet. Many of the latter day boats that were built locally or acquired in the south of England, were given two masted ketch rigs. As the boats increased in size to a maximum of about fifty-three tons, and a length of about seventy feet, the ketch rig proved to be more manageable than the huge sails on the single masted cutters. Another great labour-saving device came with the introduction of steam-powered capstans. These took a great deal of the hardship out of hauling in the trawl.
As the Nineteenth Century wore on, the fleet began to dwindle. Many of the vessels that were simply worn out through age and use were discarded and not replaced. More stringent regulations regarding the certification of trawler skippers and employment conditions for crewmen and boys may have also been a contributory factor. Competition from steam trawlers was probably the main reason for the decline. From the 1900 onwards there were a number of steam trawlers operating out of Dublin. These had the effect of drawing many crewmen away from the traditional sailing trawlers. The fleet of sailing trawlers had reduced to nine in the years before the First World War. This conflict also drew large numbers of fishermen into the Merchant Service and the Royal Navy. In 1919, there were only two registered sailing trawlers owned in Ringsend. W.E. Gladstone, and Knight Commander. By 1921, all traces of Ringsend owned vessels had disappeared from the register, thus bringing to an end a unique chapter in the Maritime history of Dublin, almost exactly a hundred years after it had begun. The sailing trawlers of Brixham clung on tenaciously into the 1930s despite huge losses to German submarines and warships during the First World War. Several were sold to Scandinavian countries and many continue to sail in the Baltic. There are about six of the Brixham trawlers left today in Britain in a much restored condition that are used for sail training and charter cruises.
The fishing traditions of Ringsend continued to some extent in Ringsend through the Twentieth Century with salmon fishing and draft netting. Just a few small boats occupied the stretch of water where once dozens of large fishing smacks anchored. However, in recent years, Ringsend has once more become a vibrant hub of maritime activity with the thriving Poolbeg Yacht and Boat club. Many fine yachts and boats and a Marina now occupy the former Trawlers Pond, and the two skiff-rowing clubs, the Stella Maris and Saint Patrick’s go from strength to strength. The old fishermen of Ringsend who used to tell yarns while sitting on the sea wall on the Pigeonhouse road in the 1950s often spoke with a certain note of nostalgia and pride whenever the smacks were mentioned. At that time few outside their own little groups seemed to be interested in what they had to say and it is unfortunate that nobody took the trouble to interview any of them and to write down their reminiscences. In their own day aboard the trawlers they would probably not have regarded themselves as anything out of the ordinary, apart from the fact that they were doing a hard and sometimes dangerous job, with an uncertain income and little security, which most nevertheless, seemed to have enjoyed. What we regard today as traditional working sail had not even begun to achieve the cult status that it was to subsequently attain and the notion of the ‘romance of the tall ships’ was a concept that was far into the future.
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