Tributes have been paid to pioneering Donegal fishing fleet owner Seamus Tully, who died earlier this month at the age of 86.
As The Sunday Independent reports, Tully was one of the “big six” mackerel vessel owners who put Killybegs on the European commercial fishing map.
Born near Stranorlar in Co Donegal on October 28th, 1938, as one of six children, he moved with the family to Killybegs when his father, a Garda, was stationed there.
His mother died when he was only ten years old, and he was 20 years old when his father died.
He had spent a brief time at secondary school in Sligo, but had left early to support the family.
He was offered his first berth at sea from Killybegs with James McLeod, who encouraged him to study for his “skipper’s ticket” and was one of his mentors, along with late legendary fisherman and netmaking business founder Albert Swan.
Tully founded Killybegs Seafoods with Paddy Gallagher and Josie McGuinness in 1968, and also established the Western Seaboard Fishing Company, with John “The Dane” Bach as skipper of the Western Endeavour.
Tully’s vision was for a fleet of ships that would support Swan Nets and Killybegs Seafoods, also benefiting shore services and the wider south-west Donegal economy.
He and colleagues managed vessels including the Western Endeavour, Carmarose, Colmcille and Westward Isle, and a highlight of his career was the Atlantic Challenge, built in Norway and skippered and jointly owned with his protegé, Martin Howley.
The Sunday Independent quotes an interview Seamus Tully gave to The Irish Times in January 1987, where he said fishing could employ “ten times as many as it does”, but Irish fishing communities were “treated like Indians on a reservation” with restricted quotas” in one of the EU’s largest sea areas.
His interview was part of a feature with a headline that caused some upset in the port - “The Mackerel Millionaires”.
In a subsequent debate about the headline with the late Arthur Reynolds, founder of The Irish Skipper magazine, Tully agreed with Reynolds that hiding its light under a bushel would do nothing to win the industry vital support at national and EU level.
He was a member of the first board of directors of the Killybegs Fishermen’s Organisation (KFO) and was nominated to the first Irish trade board. An Bord Tráchtala. He was a keen golfer and a GAA supporter, but those close him say that above all else he favoured helping others and was known as an “undercover Robin Hood”. KFO chief executive Dominic Rihan has noted.
KFO chief executive Dominic Rihan has described him as a “a gentleman in every sense of the word” who was always quick to credit others.
Former marine minister and Fianna Fáil TD for Donegal Pat “The Cope” Gallagher has said he “always had the best interests of the entire fishing sector at heart”.
Seamus Tully is survived by his wife Kathleen, daughters Carmel, Marie, Rosaleen and Claire, and grandchildren Thomas, Niamh, James and Meabh.
Read The Sunday Independent here
