The Irish Cruising Club – currently MG Motor “Sailing Club of the Year” under the active and imaginative leadership of Commodore Alan Markey – is approaching its Centenary in 2029 with the intriguing knowledge that many boats of the “First Fleet” from the initial membership listed in the Autumn of 1929 are still very much alive and sailing.
Admittedly only two of the original flotilla of five boats whose crews brought the ICC into being in Glengarriff on 13th July 1929 are still sailing. And the American ketch Seven Bells - which fortuitously joined the new group after the first leg of a Transatlantic circuit cruise that was to begin a strong link with the Cruising Club of America and honour her skipper Tom Cooke with the CCA’s Blue Water Medal - is sadly no more, despite efforts to save her by the many who had learnt their seafaring aboard her.
Espanola in July 1929, as sketched by ICC Hon. Treas. Billy McBride during the Irish Cruising Club’s founding cruise-in-company to Glengarriff. Billy McBride’s day job was as an artist in the Harry Clarke Stained Glass Studio. Image Courtesy: ICC
FIVE BOATS ATTENDED
But while only five Irish boats attended, there were many other cruising enthusiasts north and south who had indicated they would join such a club if it could be brought into being, and the first membership list greatly broadens the scope for finding “living relics”.
Last weekend, the handsome 1902-built 16-ton gaff ketch Espanola arrived into her new home port in the ultra-safe sea-locked basin at Port Dinorwic in the Menai Straits. Immaculately maintained by owner-skipper Martin Birch of Preston in Lancashire, Espanola featured on Afloat.ie from time to time a while back as she starred at various Classic and TradBoat events. But for the last nine years she has been carefully moth-balled at Glasson Dock near Preston while her owner saw through various inter-generational family responsibilities.
Espanola’s rig today is much more easily handled than her original gaff setup, but there’s still enough to keep the crew busy.
ANGLESEY DREAM
His duties completed, Martin has been able to fulfill a longtime dream of buying a forever home at Moelfre on Anglesey, while securing a berth at Port Dinorwic and a mooring at Holyhead for his beloved Espanola, which is a very special boat indeed.
Not only is she a fine example of the design-and-build skills of Sam Bond of Birkenhead, but in 1929 she was the pride-and-joy of Herbert Wright of the Royal Irish Yacht Club, who sailed her to Glengarriff as part of the first flotilla of the nascent Irish Cruising Club, knowing that if at all went according to plan he would return to Dublin Bay with Espanola as the first Commodore’s Yacht of the new club.
A fine ship in first-class shelter – Espanola last weekend, newly-arrived in Port Dinorwic. Photo: Martin Birch
HARRY DONEGAN OF CORK
We all know that the great Harry Donegan of Cork had been thinking about the idea of an Irish Cruising Club since 1912, and it was while cruising the coast of southwest-Ireland in 1922 with his newly-acquired 17-ton cutter Gull that he met up with Howth sailor Billy Mooney and family in their cruiser-converted sailing lifeboat Lil.
They got on so well that they decided they’d form an Irish Cruising Club as soon as conditions suited. But 1922 was not a good time, as Ireland was supposedly in the throes of a Civil War, despite which our two heroes were cruising merrily along, while nearby in Baltimore, Tom Moynihan and his team were in the final stages of building Conor O’Brien’s soon-to-global-circumnavigate 42ft ketch Saoirse.
The “new” Saoirse – originally of 1922 vintage – sailing in Baltimore. Owner-skipper Conor O’Brien became the ICC’s first Honorary member in 1929
FASTNET FOUNDER
Other matters then intervened, with Harry Donegan’s interests and energies deflected into the first Fastnet Race from the Solent in 1925, and with it his founding membership of what was to become the Royal Ocean Racing Club. Billy Mooney meanwhile devoted much energy to the 1925 creation by Jack Tyrrell of Arklow of his Albert Strange-designed dreamship, the 9-ton yawl Nirvana of Arklow. The new owner’s fastidious attention was such that he chartered one of the famous Arklow trading schooners, and sailed her to Liverpool so that he could personally select and then bring back to Arklow every last piece of quality wood required for the new vessel, sourcing it all at what was then reckoned to be the world’s finest timber yard.
Cork’s own Harry Donegan (1870-1940). He was a source of creative ideas for the development of sailing, yet continued to dress in late Victorian style when aboard his beloved cutter Gull. Photo: RCYC
Thus it wasn’t until the late 1920s that the burners were active once again under the Irish Cruising Club idea, and in February 1929 at the Annual Dinner of Howth Sailing Club in the Marine Hotel at Sutton, Harry Donegan - as Billy Mooney’s guest –was invited to speak, and for the first time the idea of an ICC created from a Cruise-in-Company was formally proposed.
DUN LAOGHAIRE SUPPORT ESSENTIAL
But both Donegan and Mooney realized then – as other national sailing organisations have since – that without proper Dun Laoghaire involvement, it’s not really happening at all. So they both stood back from seeking the senior post of Commodore, and persuaded Herbert Wright of the Royal Irish YC to take on the role.
He was a prominent and well-connected cruiser-racing enthusiast, first as a founder owner of the Dublin Bay 21 Class with Estelle in 1903, and then with Espanola from 1911. A respected Dublin stockbroker, his word was his bond, and when he’d agreed the commitment to the new ICC, he saw to it that Espanola led the little fleet in proper style from Cork Harbour to Glengarriff with various stops on the way.
Still alive and thriving. The Dublin Bay 21 Estelle (originally built in Dublin in 1903 for Herbert Wright) greets the restored 1926-built Conor O’Brien-designed trading ketch Ilen in Dublin Bay in June 2025 during the Centenary celebrations for the Saoirse circumnavigation south of the Great Capes. Photo: Afloat.ie
TWO OUT OF FIVE SURVIVE
Ironically, as one of Dublin’s most fashionable dentists, Billy Mooney found himself over-worked in a state-of-the-art new surgery in Fitzwilliam Square, and he was unable to take his still-fresh Nirvana to Glengarriff. But the flotilla made up in quality what it lacked in quantity, and two out of the five boats have not only survived, but are thriving.
Espanola was a challenging well-canvassed cutter in those days, but now she is a much more manageable yawl. But the former Fife-designed Belfast Lough No 1 Class Tern of 1897 vintage was yawl-rigged when Dr Dan Donovan of Cork and his convivial cronies took her to Glengarriff in 1929, but in recent years she has been restored to pristine international condition, and sailed again as originally rigged with the Classics in the Mediterranean and at Falmouth in Cornwall.
The restored Belfast Lough No 1 Class Tern of 1897 vintage sailing in the Mediterranean. She was rigged as a yawl in July 1929 when Dr Dan Donovan sailed her to the ICC Founding Rally in Glengarriff.
ESTELLE MEETS SPIRIT OF CONOR O’BRIEN
Both of Herbert Wright’s significant cruising craft still sail, for in addition to Espanola, his DB21 Estelle sails again in the beautiful Kilrush re-build style so ably practised by Steve Morris and his squad down Shannonside way.
Another re-build that honours a boat in the original published ICC membership list is of course first Honorary Member Conor O’Brien’s Saoirse, meticulously re-built by Liam Hegarty for the late Fred Kinmonth, and now comfortably at home with Baltimore as her base, while the other noted O’Brien creation –the 56ft trading ketch Ilen – was greeted in Dublin Bay in June 2025 by Estelle and others when she arrived to celebrate the Centenary of the completion of the pioneering O’Brien circumnavigation.
The 1925-built Mavis (John B Kearney) racing to success at Skerries Regatta 1928. Photo: Courtesy National YC
Still winning. Mavis on her way to winning Eggemoggin Regatta 2024 in Maine. Photo: Benjamin Mendlowitz
2025 also saw the Centenary of another very significant “original ICC boat”, the John B Kearney-designed-and-built-in-Ringsend 11-ton yawl Mavis, now brought superbly back to life by Ron Hawkins of Camden in Maine. And over in Suffolk on the outer Thames Estuary, Billy Mooney’s doubly-significant Nirvana sails on in magnificently restored form, brought up to standard by the late Pete Clay. She’s of double significance in that, in addition to her close connection to Billy Mooney, when owned and sailed by Elizabeth Crimmins of East Ferry on Cork Harbour, in 1934 she was the first female awardee of the ICC’s premier trophy, the Faulkner Cup.
Nirvana of Arklow was the boat involved in the first female award of the ICC’s Faulkner Cup in 1934.
Another intriguing boat featured in the original membership listing is the William Fife-designed and built International 12 Metre Lady Elizabeth. Her commissioning first owner in 1925 was one John Good of Ballsbridge in Dublin, who was something of a traditionalist, as Lady Edith was the last gaff-rigged 12 Metre to emerge from the Fife creativity hotbed. We knew very little of her, but thanks to Professor Google, we find that she is still alive and well, and after years in which there wee attempts to make her seem more modern, she is now in Turkish ownership and restored to gaff rig Dublin Bay 1929 form.
The 1925 Int. 12 Metre Lady Edith – now restored and in Turkish ownership – was the last 12 Metre with gaff rig to be designed ad built by William Fife of Fairlie, and was originally built for John Good of Ballsbridge in Dublin, who was on the ICC’s first membership list
SAD STORIES
This is both fascinating and encouraging. But inevitably there must be some sad stories, and while Nirvana - vehicle for the 1934 Faulkner Cup award - is in excellent order, things aren’t quite so happy for the first awardee, the 28ft 1894-vintage Mamie Doyle-of-Dun-Laoghaire-designed, James Doyle-built double-ended gaff cutter Marie, which carried Keith McFerran and Desmond Keating on a cruise which received the first award of the Falkner Cup in 1931.
The historic Marie in Michael McKee’s ownership on Strangford Lough in 1966.
In recent decades, Marie has been based in Northern Ireland, cruised by such seafaring luminaries as Martin Imrie and Michael McKee. Age took its toll, but after some years of increasing dereliction, she was saved and restored as a sort of motor-sailer by a motor-boat enthusiast from Groomsport.
But he too is now gone, and the word is Marie seems increasingly in the departure lounge. In this era of high-profile restorations for boats of significance, surely it isn’t too much to hope that ways and means can be found to bring the historically very significant Marie back to vigorous life?
Briefly re-born. The restored Marie – under shortened rig – in Glenarm in 2008 with former ICC Commodore Peter Ronaldson visiting on board.
