If success has many fathers, while failure is an orphan, then Afloat.ie must be one of the most successful media outlets in Ireland. For in recent years, several people have proudly claimed to have been the founder of what is now a unique multi-purpose highly-illustrated maritime stream of consciousness and 24/7 nautical news coverage.
Yet, in a classic case of the experiences of the shoemaker’s children, we missed the news of Afloat’s own Golden Jubilee in March 2022. And also in 2022, we missed the 60th Anniversary of the first publication of the originating publication, Irish Yachting, in July/August 1962.
We can only plead that an outfit like Afloat.ie should be writing and analysing the story. It should not be the story. Nor indeed should Afloat.ie’s writers, despite the breaking this week of a story which has made such a situation unavoidable
SAILING’S SUCCESSFUL EMERGENCE FROM COVID THE BIG STORY
But further to all that, the big story in 2022 was the emergence from Covid of sailing in Ireland in all its glorious forms. Giving such a re-birth the prominence, analysis and celebration it deserved made routine Golden Jubilees of secondary importance, but maybe we can put them in further context now.
Dublin Bay sailing as it used to be popularly perceived – Richard Breeches Beechey’s portrayal of a Royal St George YC Regatta in the 1870s
For the reality is that the provision of publicity for sailing in Ireland has often seemed to bring controversy in its wake, with the style being set by the Navigatio about the ocean voyages of St Brendan the Navigator. This was finally first published in the 12th Century, so as the voyages had taken place several centuries earlier, their precise veracity has naturally been subsequently queried. But as other respected documents and archaeological research have confirmed that voyaging Irish monks did indeed reach many remote places far beyond the horizon, the general theme and the Brendan story have been broadly accepted by most.
DID BRENDAN THE NAVIGATOR REALLY EXIST?
But it was not accepted by that singular maritime enthusiast, the late Dr John de Courcy Ireland. After extensive research in odd places in his own eccentric style, he concluded that no such person as St Brendan had ever existed. This was typical of Dr John. While his heart may have been in the right place as regards the maritime development of Ireland, his personal prejudices and weirder notions tended to get in the way of the big picture.
Thus when various modest proposals were being made to improve the waterfront infrastructure of his beloved Dun Laoghaire harbour, he vehemently opposed every one, and when asked how the harbour could best be used, he reverted to the world of his Edwardian childhood by asserting that it would be wonderful if Dun Laoghaire could be amply supplied with a fleet of rowing dinghies for hire, “so that the people could go afloat and savour the maritime experience for themselves”.
The Brendan currach departing from Kerry in 1976 to re-enact a voyage which engendered historical debate
Then Tim Severin’s re-enactment of the Brendan voyage came along in 1976 to give Dr John’s view some prominence. But even when I suggested that we might agree that while there maybe was no such person as St Brendan, perhaps we could also agree that some remarkable voyages were made by someone of the same name, he was having none of it. Then he reverted to writing further narrow-vision histories of Dun Laoghaire, interspersed with gloom-inducing stories about the many maritime wrecks of Ireland, which seemed to me a very odd way to encourage a sea-minded outlook among the plain people of Ireland.
Fortunately, the development of recreational sailing in Ireland was not seen by him as being within his remit, so such things as the fleet of pleasure sailing boats maintained by Hugh Maguire on Lough Erne in the 16th century, and the well-recorded experiments against local sailing boats in Dublin Bay by Sir William Petty’s pioneering catamaran Simon & Jude in the 17th Century, went uncontested by the blessed Dr de Courcy Ireland.
CORK LEADS THE WAY
By the 18th Century, the activities of the pioneering Water Club of the Harbour of Cork were receiving so much attention in words and pictures that Ireland was something of a pace-setter in sailing journalism, a trend that continued in the 19th Century when the sailing in Cork Harbour and the new Kingstown Harbour were both taking places conveniently close to cities where several newspapers were being published.
Regular sailing reports were par for the course, even if they did tend to focus on the activities of “The Quality” assembled to watch the regattas from the shore rather than the often cut-throat sport of those afloat, where professional crews were often ruthless in pursuit of large money prizes.
However, in terms of publication in significant sailing-specific periodicals, coverage was dependent on local writing talent’s connections to London publications, with the occasional links to New York and Paris. But Kingstown/Dun Laoghaire in particular, seems to have been almost over-supplied in aspiring nautical journos, and many Irish stories appeared regularly in Hunt’s Yachting Magazine, and then in the ultimately well-established Yachtsman and the rather upstart Yachting World, founded in 1894.
The keen Kingstown correspondent for the new Yachting World in 1894 ensured publicity for Dublin Bay sailing
In Cork, meanwhile, the great Harry Donegan was accustomed to dispose of his day’s work as a leading solicitor with maximum efficiency in order to devote his time to recording and promoting sailing, but the Great War and the subsequent turmoil within Ireland put everything on hold until 1929 and the foundation of the Irish Cruising Club. Its annual journal, beautifully printed from 1931 onwards by Colm O Lochlainn of the Three Candles Press, was the first regularly-published Irish sailing publication.
Harry Donegan of Cork led the way in providing sensible publicity for sailing in Ireland
DRAGON GOLD CUP WINNER BRINGS OUT “THE IRISH YACHTSMAN”
Then in the revival spirit which emerged after World War II, there was a rush to print. Errol McNally in Dublin aspired to publish a sailing magazine, but made do with a one-off Annual in 1946. Yet in the north, Dragon Gold Cup 1947 winner Eric Strain was less easily discouraged, and having had articles published in London sailing magazines, he managed to bring out two or three editions of a journal called The Irish Yachtsman.
But it too proved a disappointment, as also did his place of fourth for Britain in the Dragons in the 1948 Olympics. For although he had won the Gold Cup in style with the basic Johannsen-built Scandinavian Dragon Ceres, a boat which he dearly loved, for the Olympics, the British Olympic Committee insisted he race a high-quality British-built boat. So although the new Ceres II was a masterpiece of classic yacht construction, she was overweight and no match for most Dragons and particularly not Ceres I, yet it was Ceres II he was obliged to race to Olympic frustration.
In time, Eric Strain was to emigrate to Australia and find fulfilment with the Sydney Harbour Dragon class to such an extent that he was reserve helm to local star Gordon Ingate aboard Frank Packer’s America’s Cup challenging 12 Metre.
JIMMY MOONEY MAKES HIS MARK
Meanwhile, back in Ireland, the encouragement of separate national participation in the 1948 Olympics, thanks to the ad hoc formation of a body called the Irish Yachting Federation, led to a growing sense of national sailing identity, considerably helped by the fact that its most vocal proponent, Jimmy Mooney, had won the new and hugely prestigious Edinburgh Cup in the International Dragons in 1953 by sailing north from Dublin Bay in Ashaka, winning the cup in the racing at Cultra in Belfast Lough, and sailing home again to Dun Laoghaire with this very symbolic trophy under the foredeck, wrapped in a couple of Aran jerseys.
Jimmy Mooney at the helm of the Dragon Class Ashaka. His victory in the 1953 Edinburgh Cup did much to foster a sense of Irish sailing identity
We could write thousands of words on Jimmy Mooney – he was a wonder but taken from among us at far too young an age. Thus while changes were taking place with the Irish Dinghy Racing Association evolving into the Irish Yachting Association, Jimmy Mooney was ploughing his own furrow with the determination that there should be a national sailing magazine, and in the summer of 1962, it appeared as Irish Yachting, with most of the heavy lifting done by Jimmy himself despite the assistance of a nationwide committee to which your columnist and Mike Balmforth contributed from the north.
First edition of 1962, thanks to Jimmy Mooney. On the cover is Paul Campbell’s RNSA 24 Minx of Malham, originally built for the legendary Captain John Illingworth.
Thus in talking about the origins of Afloat.ie, we are talking about standing on the shoulders of the giant that was Jimmy Mooney at his most energetic in 1962 - 61 years ago. Sadly, his terminal illness was soon to sap his strength, and Irish Yachting became Irish Yachting & Motorboating under this writer’s full-time editorship in 1970, and in March 1972, we made it Ireland Afloat – not a particularly inspiring name, but it was the only neutral title I could come up with when constantly badgered by all sorts of boat interests which wished to feel included.
AFLOAT BECOMES CENTRAL TO SAILING IN IRELAND
Over time, the name acquired its own strength through the simple fact of continuing to exist, despite the exigencies of publishing through periods of often rapidly fluctuating national economic health. And in some of those upheavals, we acquired new publishers, some of whom proclaimed themselves as the founders of Afloat.
Erskine & Molly Childers’ Asgard featuring on the Afloat cover during her time as Ireland’s Sail Training vessel The discussion which resulted in the building of the brigantine Asgard II was soon to begin in the magazine.
It was something which was right up there with doubting the veracity of the 1969 Moon landing, but it didn’t bother me as I knew they’d move on in due course before long until, in the 1990s, David O’Brien took over the reins in a long-lasting and continuing setup. If anything, it’s strengthened by the fact that this publisher is so determined to keep himself out of the limelight – despite becoming a World Fireball Champion in 1995 and a 2000 Olympian – that from time to time, I have to assure fellow sailors that he really does exist.
IN FROM THE START WITH “CLUB OF THE YEAR” AND “SAILOR OF THE YEAR”
Meanwhile, with Afloat going on to become Afloat.ie in 1993, with print gradually receding in the face of the rapidly developing, always evolving and occasionally award-winning website, we were able to give extra coverage to associated awards with which we had been directly involved from the start, such as the “Club of the Year” contest which was inaugurated in 1979, and the “Sailor of the Month” and “Sailor of the Year” acclamations which burst on the scene in 1996.
Sailing is changing, and yet the very healthy basics of sailing - and sailing in Ireland in particular - remain the same. And Afloat.ie continues in strength, right at the heart of recording and encouraging our great and multi-faceted sport in Ireland and worldwide.
