Tributes have been paid to maritime author, historian, librarian, sailor and musician Tim Collins who passed away unexpectedly in Galway.
“A polymath,” was how Galway hooker sailor and adventurer Dr Michael Brogan described him, while colleagues at NUI Galway (NUIG) described him as a “true Renaissance man” who was both “kind and respectful” to students and staff.
Brogan first met him in the choir at what was then University College, Galway (UCG), and both were founder members of the Cois Cladaigh choir which marks its 40th anniversary this year.
“Tim contributed so much to maritime history and science, he was a great ornithologist, and he sailed with me on many trips in MacDuach, around Ireland and up to the west coast of Scotland,” Brogan said.
Brogan singled out his work on the origins of and extensive writing about the Galway hooker – he published a paper on the subject for the Galway Archaeological and Historical Society.
Tim “Ted” Collins was born in London on December 28th, 1948. His parents Tim and Suzanne were from Co Clare, and as both came from large families they never settled in London, according to their grandson, Tim Collins Jr.
The couple returned to Ennis, Co Clare, when Tim was 11 years old, and opened a greengrocers shop in Abbey Street. Their son attended the Christian Brothers’ school in Ennis and began studying at what was then University College, Galway in 1966.
During his time at UCG, he was involved in rowing and sang in the university choir. He graduated with a BSc, and took a diploma in librarianship from Liverpool John Moores University.
He worked in the Long Room Library in Trinity College Dublin for a year where, as Tim Jr recalled at his funeral, he “spoke proudly of looking after Brian Boru's harp and the arduous task of delicately turning the page in the Book of Kells for the tourists”.
“Like Tim and Suzanne a few years earlier, he wanted to return to where he felt most at home, however. Happily, he was offered the job as librarian in the new James Hardiman library. It was clear to see that had found his niche,” Tim Jr said.
There he met Evelyn Drinan – she had come to UCG to study science. She recalled how he was always as helpful as possible to people looking for something in the library. She also remembered how he offered to buy her a pint while she was on her own in Tigh Neachtain's pub in Galway, waiting for a friend.
They married in 1978 in Barna and lived in Fallon's thatched cottage on the Clybaun Road - a welcoming home remembered in their circle of friends as “somewhere to stay, somewhere to get fed and somewhere to have a late-night sessions”.
They subsequently moved to a small red-bricked railway cottage just outside Moycullen beside Ross Lake, and then to Barna where they reared their three children, Tim Jr, Hazel and Adam. His children inherited his love of music – apart from singing, Tim also played the bodhrán.
He was both an avid reader and a prolific, published author on a very diverse set of topics. He wrote a “bio-bibliography” of Irish naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger, entitled Floreat Hibernia, with a preface by naturalist David Bellamy, published by the Royal Dublin Society in 1985.
He was also author of Transatlantic Triumph and Heroic Failure: The Galway Line, published by Collins Press in 2003. In it, he recounted the colourful history of the Atlantic Steam Navigation Company, the Galway Line, which he described as one of the most unfortunate shipping lines ever registered.
He researched and wrote about Tuam native Dick Dowling who emigrated to the USA and became a decorated Confederate artillery officer in the American Civil War, and he also wrote a biography of his uncle Jimmie Collins who died at the age of 22 after the ship he was serving on, HMS Glorious, went down off the coast of Norway during the second world war.
He was also a contributor to the Clare Island Survey, having participated in the symposia initiated by island resident Ciara Cullen. Following his retirement from NUI Galway, he and Evelyn travelled extensively.
He maintained a keen interest in hurling, soccer and rugby – specifically Clare hurling, Liverpool Football Club and Connacht Rugby - and would often participate in lively discussions on same and other erudite topics with Ernie Deacy in Ernie’s shop on Sea Road.
His family also remember his expert cooking, taking pride in his “patent stuffing” for the Sunday roast - a recipe passed on by his mother, Suzanne.
Speaking at his funeral, Dr Brendan O’Connor, marine scientist, recalled that Tim Collins was a "one of a kind" person “whose deep, deep knowledge of the history of 19th and early 20th century Irish marine natural history was exceptional”.
“ I have never met anyone with a similar in-depth knowledge of this topic. With Tim’s passing, I don’t think I ever will again either - a huge loss,” O’Connor said.
“ He was an avid researcher not only of the people who did the research but also the vessels on which they worked. Clearly, his tour de force was Praeger and the Clare Island Survey but he also researched individual Clare Island surveyors including the author of the volume on Foramenifera (a phylum of small shelled protozoans), Edward Heron-Allen”.
O’Connor noted that the Heron-Allen Society in Britain would bring Tim with them on field trips to where Heron-Allen had visited to collect forameniferans. They were also keen to quiz him about his knowledge of Heron-Allen.
“It was Tim who prompted me to carry out biographical research on another of the Clare Island Survey specialists, Rowland Southern, a person whose contribution not only to Irish and European specific marine invertebrate phyla but also on a world scale has been greatly under-recognised,” O’Connor recalled.
“ He regularly rang me to see how I was getting on and would tut-tut when I would tell him “ …. sorry, not there yet, Tim”,” O’Connor said.
O’Connor recalled Tim’s keen interest in local history, and how he would often head off with O’Connor, Michael Brogan and Seamus McGuire to some “out of the way pub for a few tunes on a Friday or Saturday night”.
“These sessions (and any encounter with Tim) were all laced with wit, humour, laughter and devilment,” O’Connor said.
He was very proud of his grandson Peter Timothy who arrived just over four weeks before his passing.
“Ted was definitely over the moon to be a grandfather. We have it on record already that he told us Peter was his favourite grandchild,” Tim Jr said.
Tim Jr recalled how his father had watched the England v Ireland rugby match with him and his sister Hazel shortly before his death. His father was “in fine form, giving out about Marcus Smith's haircut, grumbling every time Maro Itoje got near the ball and of course being delighted with the result as Ireland hammered England on their home turf...”
