In Kilrush on the Shannon Estuary, they say it's other sailing centres that are at a considerable and perhaps inconvenient distance from them. But even if many of Kilrush's serious clients have to travel for some hours before they reach the sacred spot with Steve Morris and skilled staff in the multi-task boatyard beside the fully-furnished marina, it's well worth the time. For there are very few places in Ireland where you can hope to see boat-building woodwork of this quality on a regular basis.
SERIAL BOAT OWNERS
It reveals, too, that the developing story of sailing in Ireland is something that can bring out the serial boat-owner in certain people, folk of means who get itchy if they don't know that another classic is on the way in order to keep company with the one (or two or three) that they already have in commission.
A joy to behold. The interior of the rebuilt Naneen. Photo: W M Nixon
Thus it's appropriate that one of the boats currently getting attention in the yard is the Dublin Bay 21 Naneen. She has had four active seasons since being the first of the DB21s to be restored in the new style for Hal Sisk & Fionan de Barra and the Sailors of the Dublin Bay 21s, and is back in Kilrush for the full beauty salon treatment to prepare her for a starring role in the Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta in July.
Steve Morris (left) with Dan Mill of Galway, one of several world-class craftsmen who have been involved with the Kilrush projects. Photo: W M Nixon
Naneen of 1905 vintage was the first DB 21 to be actually built in Dun Laoghaire, and her owner was one Thomas Cosby Burrowes (1856-1935) of Stradone and two or three other Big Houses in County Cavan, where his lands ran to around 9,700 acres. Despite living about as far from the salty sea as is possible in Ireland, he sailed on Lough Erne but was also much involved in Dublin area sailing for many years, becoming Vice Commodore of Dublin Bay SC in 1900, while also being listed as a Patron of Howth Regatta.
Draftiness Central….Stradone House in Count Cavan was the main ancestral home of serial boat-owner Thomas Cosby Burrowes
He was an early owner in Ben Middleton's original Water Wag class in 1887. For although Brenda, one of the first batch of boats ordered early in the year was initially owned by Harpur Nixon and Ed Legg, by the time the growing fleet was assembled at Easter 1887, Cosby Burrowes was on hand to steer her, and with him at the helm she was first across the starting line in Dun Laoghaire in the very first race of all on Easter Tuesday, April 12th 1887.
The orginal Water Wags of 1887. As the crews learned about keeping weight amidships, they provided some very hot racing
That said, specific ownership of boats when racing was over-ruled by naming whoever happened to be at the helm, and in the single-handed race which concluded the 1887 season in October, Burrowes is listed as winning while helming Whirligig, which he was listed as owning Yet while he served as Water Wags Class Captain in 1888, his sailing interests were soon turning elsewhere.
The 1884-founded Dublin Bay Sailing Club was casting about to create a robust large dinghy development class, and when the new (first) restricted Mermaid Class was established in 1891, he owned the first one, designed for him by William Fife, built by Doyle of Dun Laoghaire, and given the unlovely name of Gew Gaw.
The original 18ft Dublin Bay Mermaids, a restricted class founded in 1891. Cosby Burrowes owned the first of them, called Gew Gaw and designed for him by William Fife. Photo: DBSC
But no sooner had the Mermaids started to take off than some young bloods got a One Rater class going, and Burrowes had to have one of them, Nansheen, again designed by Fife and built by Doyle in 1892. With at least two boats in fashionable Dublin Bay classes, he was surely busy enough for a while. But then when the new Colleen Class of keel/centreboard sloops got going in 1897, he just had to have one of them too, and started racing Nance in 1898, possibly because it offered the option of racing nearer home, as there was a class on Lough Erne.
In 1892, Burrowes' boat was a One Rater called Nansheen. Photo: DBSC
The name "Nancy" in several variations was used in a number of his boats, so some genealogist might find a special Burrowes relative of that name. But meanwhile our man was rushing on with a fresh burst of enthusiasm for the new Fife-designed Dublin Bay 25 class of 1898, and his boat for 1899 – again called Nance but now known as Iona in Dutch ownership – was the only boat of the class to be built at the Fife yard in Scotland.
The Dublin Bay 25s of 1898 became the Queens of the Bay – this is longtime owner J B Stephens' Punctilio flying her winning pennants. Photo: DBSC
STRONG LOUGH ERNE-DUBLIN BAY LINKS
Through living in Cavan, Burrowes was in the long-established Lough Erne-Dublin Bay sailing axis. Although there were links to Belfast Lough and Strangford, his connections to the Royal St George YC, the Royal Alfred YC, and Dublin Bay SC were such that when a visit to the Belfast Lough Regattas by the new DB25s was mooted for 1899, Burrowes determinedly threw in his lot with Dublin Bay class rather than with the very similar Belfast Lough Number Ones.
But as boatbuilders in both Irish centres were already working beyond capacity catering for the new classes, his ambition was saved by finding there was a slot available in Fife's own yard at Fairlie to build his boat, This made her uniquely Fife-built, as all the Belfast Lough No 1s were built by Hilditch in Carrickfergus, while the DB25s had several builders, including one or two on the Solent.
"ONLY TRUE DUBLIN BAY 25"
As sardonic observers of the Dublin Bay One Design scene have observed, it may well be that Nance is the only true Dublin Bay 25 ever built. The different boat-builders around Dublin Bay and elsewhere creating the new ultra-fashionable class kept pushing the envelope on the speed-encouraging dimensions, and it's said that some of them could more accurately have been described as a Dublin Bay 26, and in one or two mere extreme cases, the Dublin Bay 27 tag could well have been on target.
Cosby Burrowes' Fife-designed DB 25 Nance (now called Iona) was the only boat in the class to be built at the William Fife yard, and cynics reckon she may have been the only true DB25.
Be that as it may, they were demanding and expensive boats to keep in fully-crewed racing trim. And as the owner of thousands of acres of land in Cavan, the Land Acts were affecting the seriously rich Cosby Burrowes. He stepped up his extensive property holdings in England while down-sizing in Dublin Bay sailing to the Dublin Bay 21 which became Naneen. Thanks to her construction by Clancy of Kingstown in 1905, she was the first DB21 actually built in Dun Laoghaire, which explains why she was the first DB21 to be selected for the Renaissance programme on its initiation, leading up to the launching of the re-born Naneen on a perfect early-Autumn day in September 2019.
Naneen before her restoration
Those of us fortunate enough to be there will never forget it. But it pulls you up to realise it's now four-and-a-half years ago, and Naneen is benefitting from a re-freshening course which has her back in Kilrush in company with other classic restorations, each one with its own human story.
The re-built Naneen on her maiden sail, October 2019.
COSBY BURROWES LEAVES THE STAGE
But before turning to them, we've to finish the Cosby Burrowes story. With a growing family, he scaled back his front-line sailing, and by 1909 he has just one boat, Naneen in Dublin Bay, and the family seemed to prefer living in one of their more manageable properties, Lismore Lodge at Crossdoney in Cavan rather then in the draughty vastness of Stradone.
Thomas Cosby Burrowes with his family in Lismore Lodge, Crossdoney, Co Cavan in 1912.
But Stradone continued to the symbol of the Burrowes family's less-than-friendly acquisition of large tracts of Cavan way back in 1654, so despite the best efforts of the Land Commission to achieve a more equitable distribution, in the ultra-troubled times of 1921 it was torched. The Burrowes family promptly slapped in a compensation claim for £100,000 to the new Free State Government, and to the surprise of many they got £61,000.
Then the word got out that they had every intention of spending it on Stradone, which indeed they did. But this particular house called Stradone was in Wiltshire in England, where serial boat buyer Thomas Cosby Burrowes lived out his days until 1935.
MAUREEN AND THE 8 METRE CRUISER/RACERS
The history of the part built DB21 Maureen awaiting her multi-skins beyond Naneen has another line of interest, as in the 1950s she was owned and keenly-raced by Peter Odlum, who would go on to become a very effective Commodore of the Royal Irish YC.
But although it was assumed that he would "graduate" up to the Dublin Bay 24s, instead he decided to keep a Dragon for racing in Dublin Bay, and would pitch in with the new 8 Metre Cruiser/Racer Class on the Clyde, were he raced with considerable success with Namhara and Inishmara. He also introduced the 8 Metre C/Rs to Ireland, first with Ross Courtney's Fionnuala (later owned by Clayton Love Jnr of Cork), then with Johnny Pearson's Orana (overall winner of the 1966 RORC Beaumaris Cork Race) and finally with the Howth syndicate-owned Debby, which introduced Otto Glaser to the international offshore racing game.
The 8 Metre C/R Orana sailing to success in the Morbihan Festival in south Brittany. Thanks to Peter Odlum of the DB 21 Maureen, Orana came to Ireland in the ownership of Johnny Pearson of Howth, and was overall winner of the 1966 RORC Beaumaris-Cork Race.
NEWEST AND OLDEST HOWTH 17S ARE IN KILRUSH
By contrast with Maureen's epoxy-saturated construction, the new Howth 17 on the left of our lead photo is classic construction, though with rather better materials available for the fastenings than was the case when the class started back in 1898.
She's for Donal Gallagher of Howth, who is Honorary Secretary of the Irish Cruising Club and bases his Oceanis 40.1 sloop Catalina in Baltimore each summer. But just once he made the mistake of getting involved when the Howth 17s cruised West Cork for their 125th a couple of years ago, and got hooked.
The new boat has been allocated Number 23, and will definitely be the newest Howth 17. But as the class has never had a Number 13, in theory by the middle of 2025 there will be 22 Howth 17s eligible to race before the coming season is out.
So it's doubly appropriate that one of the five oldest Hilditch-built boats of the original 1898 built batch is also in Kilrush for a makeover-plus. She's the Aura, and owners Ian & Judith Malcolm would come into the serial boat owner category, as a star of their flotilla is the 1915-built Water Wag Barbara with which they won the "Top Dinghy" trophy in the 2015 Volvo Dun Laoghaire Regatta.
Serious work. The 127-year-old Aura gets new garboards and re-fastening in Kilrush Boatyard
Ian does much of the flotilla maintenance himself, but knows when the call in the professionals. Now, while he is putting the time to good use by getting one of his knees put back into sea-going order, the photos of Aura in the shed indicate that Steve Morris and his team have a real project in their hands.
When you see a boat stripped back like this, it can be difficult to imagine her sailing blithely across the sea in proper order. So here are four photos taken during the past twenty-five years that show just how stylishly and widely Aura is sailed.
Aura off her birthplace beside Carrickfergus Castle at her Centenary on Saturday April 14th, 1998. That night – despite freezing temperatures – she and her sisters sailed back non-stop to Howth. Photo: David Jones
Aura in Howth Sound, when brisk nor'easters and wind-over-tide conditions can create interesting situations. Photo: Jaimie Blandford
Aura and the 1873 iron-built Phoenix (Lefroy family) as Committee Boat at the Classics Regatta at Dromineer on Lough Derg with Shannon One Designs and Water Wags. It is reckoned the total age of the boats in this photo is well over two thousand years. Photo: LDYC
Aura at the Fastnet Rock during the Howth 17s' 125th Anniversary Cruise-in-Company in West Cork in 2023. Photo: Trish Nixon
