For many, the complex vehicle sport of sailing is a family experience, an inherited interest. Inevitably this seems to make it ultra-exclusive to civilians. But that's all part of a cunning plot to ensure that only the keenest and most able non-family-sailors can break though into the magic circle, thereby improving the quality of the breeding stock and – if anything – raising the levels of enthusiasm and ability throughout the sailing community.
Nevertheless in a strongly family-minded island like Ireland, sailing dynasties inevitably develop. And in the Royal Irish Yacht Club – founded 1831, resting 1840, revived 1846, Club of the Year 2016 and 2025 – they even have a dynasty of club history scribes, the Boylans, who have been making sense of the rapidly increasing amount of important material this rather special club has been generating afloat and ashore for 194 years and more.
A Hoist of Flags? RIYC Commodores past and present with author Peter Boylan (left) and Club Trustee David Beattie (right). Photo: Miguel Walker
MERMAIDS AND RUFFIAN 23s
It started with Henry Boylan (1911-2007). He may have been very much of the Boylans of Oriel and the Boyne Valley, but it was sailing with Trinity College Dublin that reinforced his interest in boats. Thus he joined Dublin Bay SC as he started his Civil Service career in Dublin, and began a lifetime interest in One-Design racing, first in the Mermaids and then in the Ruffian 23s.
Yet to suggest that he was just a Dublin civil servant who raced One-Designs in the Bay scarcely touches the wonderful complexity of Henry Boylan. The man was a universe. He managed to carve out a specialist career in many of the more interesting areas of the public service. And his fascination with the world of sailing and its people soon resulted in his being elected to the Royal Irish YC. Thereafter, although he found the time to write several books on multiple topics, he was in time able to publish an attractive first history of the RIYC, White Sails Crowding, in 1994.
TRANSOCEANIC SAILOR
Much has happened with this rather special club since then. So Henry's son Peter – a sailor of course, and a trans-oceanic one at that – has taken on the task of revising and up-dating. He went into a different career path by ultimately becoming Master of the National Maternity Hospital, but like his father he writes books on the side.
Early morning at the 1850-built Royal Irish YC clubhouse within the marina at Dun Laoghaire
Working with Dr Jane Mahony, Researcher with the Long Room Arts & Humanities Research Institute at TCD, this new, up-dated and very much expanded White Sails Crowding was recently launched in a clubhouse well-filled with grateful members.
And rightly so. The fact is a modern front-line yacht club of this calibre is such a busy place that an annual book-size review of all club acitivities could usefully be produced. Heartfelt gratitude should be the first response to anyone who can familiarise us with all that has happened since 1994, and put it in a manageable context with what went before, as the authors have done.
This is all before going on to show how the Royal Irish YC in 2025 is already up to speed with a team entered for the Admirals Cup and Centenary Fastnet Race in July/August, and another team listed in the New York Yacht Club Invitationals in September.
1850 CLUBHOUSE
This extensive international activity is in addition to a very busy home programme built on a sound basis of Junior and Adult Training schemes. Yet somehow the 1850-built clubhouse – admittedly with some very clever more recent interior modifications – can accommodate it all with a relaxing style that makes it a leading social centre.
Thus we can read of people as diverse – or maybe not so very diverse – as Ludwig Wittgenstein and Garret FitzGerald dining in the club within the benign hosting of Professor George O'Brien, the "inventor of Irish Economics" who, while highly influential, was such an otherwise shy man in his later years that his beloved RIYC was almost the only destination he contemplated on leaving his house.
"We got there". Jane Mahony and Peter Boylan signing copies of the exoanded RIYC history. Photo: Miguel Walker
OSCAR-WORTHY IMPRESSION OF CYRIL CUSACK
Equally I can recall sailing across from Howth for a spot of lunch in the club, and the round table in the big window in the dining room was well-filled with Cyril Cusack and his cronies having a fine old time, with the man himself giving an Oscar-worthy impression of being Cyril Cusack.
As for that "Royal" in the title, when the usual kerfuffle was being made – as it is from time to time - about such things in the Republic of Ireland, here at Afloat we suggested that it needn't incur excessive expense, as it would only involve the club retaining its initials while becoming the Republican Irish Yacht Club. But then it was April 1st.
CONTINUITY FROM DE VALERA
Yet even here, this RIYC history is ahead of the game, as it tells us that back in the day, a concerned sub-committee were able to write as acquaintances to Taoiseach Eamon de Valera, asking about whether they should contemplate abandoning the "Royal". He replied they absolutely should not, as a sense of underlying continuity was essential to the vision of Ireland.
Ireland in the 21st Century encompasses the historic Royal Irish YC in an active role in modern life.
In these times of turbulence, a book like the new White Sails Crowding is a balm of comfort. While readable from cover to cover, it's best dipped into in order to find some choice morsel from times past – sometime the not so distant past – to remind us that life goes on in weird and wonderful ways, and people of goodwill and special skills will find solutions for everyone's benefit ashore and afloat.
White Sails Crowding
A History of the Royal Irish Yacht Club
Henry Boylan, Peter Boylan & Jane Mahony
Published by A & A Farmar,
€35
