The day seven children and five adults lost their lives
ON Saint Patrick’s Day, March 17, 1835, a boating tragedy in the waters between Wexford Quays and the Fort of Rosslare led to the loss of twelve lives. Seven of the twelve were children.
We are no strangers to tragedy in the waters off our Wexford coast. In 1835, the ill-fated Pomona, the Mexico and the World Concord had yet to sail into our history books. For centuries our coastguard and lifeboat volunteers have been honoured for their bravery in saving lives at sea, and their stories have been handed down with pride. Sadly, this story has been largely forgotten and lost in time.
In 1835, Ireland was recovering from an outbreak of cholera. Over 50,000 people had died from the disease between 1832 and 1834. But Wexford Harbour was busy. Gas lanterns had been installed on the Quay, with a lamplighter employed to tend them at dusk and dawn.
Out on Rosslare Fort there was a thriving community too, with revenue, coastguard and pilots stationed there. The square at The Fort housed the officers and their families. There was a church and a school.
On St Patrick’s Day in Wexford town the markets were busy, with possibly the same festive atmosphere that we associate with St Patrick’s Day today. In 1835 the markets in the south-east were selling butter at an average of 3 pounds 5 shillings per cwt., oatmeal and barley at 12 shillings per cwt., whiskey was 4 shillings and 8 pence for an Irish gallon, and bacon pigs were 1 pound 3 shillings each.
People observed their holy day and made time for a trip to town. They would have stocked up on supplies, possibly met up with friends and maybe even wet the shamrock.
The coastguards stationed at Rosslare Fort brought their families by boat on the five mile trip to Wexford - easier, possibly, than the eighteen mile road trip by donkey and cart.
The Wexford Conservative of March 21st, 1835, gave a scathing report of the St. Patrick’s Day celebrations in Wexford town, a town, it said, that boasted of being the most truly Catholic town in Ireland - ‘a town well stocked with holy fathers, holy sisters, holy mothers in the many nunneries, convents and in the college.’ From dawn until dusk there were ‘universal scenes of drunkeness and immorality’.
The article went on to question the character of Saint Patrick himself. If the Irish set aside this day to celebrate the character of the man, and observe his practices, then he must have been a ‘drunken, praying, pugnacious priest’. It notes that the day ended with many black eyes and bloody noses!
And just two columns below this, they reported the terrible drowning tragedy that happened on the evening of that St Patrick’s
Day - ‘it is some gratification under the melancholy circumstances, to know that the men were all perfectly sober on leaving the quay’ it said.
The Rosslare Coastguard boat left Wexford Quays to return to the Fort after their day out at about 3.30 p.m. on that afternoon of March 17, 1835. The children must have all been in good spirits, looking forward to telling their mothers, waiting at the Fort, all about their day. Rowing the five mile trip from Wexford would probably have taken less than an hour. There were five adults and seven children on board, the youngest not much more than a toddler.
At around 4 p.m., nearing ‘the flats’, the Wexford Freeman reports, ‘it came on to blow a perfect hurricane, and the boat was upset’. They were in sight of the Fort and home. The distress was noticed by the pilots on Rosslare Fort, who immediately rowed out to assist. By the time they arrived there was no sign of the boat’s occupants. In mere minutes there had been unimaginable scenes of panic and desperation, and then nothing but the sounds of the storm.
The yacht of G Grogan Morgan (he had built Arcandrisk House, Barntown, in 1833) was moored nearby. A boat from the yacht was put out to help, but to no avail.
Had the weather changed so suddenly that they were unprepared, or had they seen the change coming as they left Wexford, and had hoped to get back to the Fort before it reached them?
(Two pigs, which had been bought at the market, made it to the flats and were brought to the Fort by the pilots).
Mr Morgan’s boat brought the terrible news to Wexford. As word of the tragedy spread, reporters were reluctant to name those on board ‘in the forlorn hope that the report we have received may be found to be incorrect’.
Sadly, of course, the news was true. It cannot be imagined the heartbreak it brought to Rosslare Fort. Three widows and nineteen children were left bereft, as were parents, relatives and friends in the little, close knit community. The Coastguard Station was left devastated. Ten people who lost their lives that day were officially named. The identities of two others have remained unclear. Those lost were:
James Jupp – H.M.Coastguard, aged 33, and his son, William, aged 9. James left a wife, Leah, and four children – the youngest, Richard Thomas, was only 4 months old.
James Harmer – H.M.Coastguard, aged 46, and his three children – one daughter and two sons. The body of his son James, aged 18, wasn’t found until Monday, April 6. James left a pregnant wife, Elizabeth, and at least one other child. Her baby, Herbert James was born just weeks after the tragedy, in April 1835.
Thomas Hooper – H.M.Coastguard, aged 39, and his two sons, Benjamin, aged 15 and John, aged 11 years. Sadly, in the previous year, 1834, Thomas and his wife, Elizabeth, had also lost a young son, Richard, aged just 2 years.
Eliza Green – aged 4 years. Eliza left heartbroken parents, Robert and Sarah Green and two little sisters.
The Wexford Conservative of Saturday, March 21 reports that also lost were ‘ a servant woman and the son of a man who was saved, who we regret to hear is in a very precarious state and is quite unable to give a rational account of the cause of the disaster.’
The Bristol Mercury added ‘Whether the accident was owing to any indiscretion on the part of the men, or from the heavy gale which was blowing at the time, we have not heard.’
In the days following the tragedy, reports were written of the widows and children left behind.
‘The above calamity is one of no ordinary description, involving, as it does, in penury and want, three widows and nineteen surviving children, thus deprived of the means of support, and oh! what a lesson to the contemplative mind is afforded by the sudden and perhaps untimely deaths of so many human beings.’
The Wexford Freeman reported ‘It is a matter of painful recollection that the men who came to so untimely an end, all have large and helpless families, unprotected and unprovided upon the world.’
An appeal went out to the public ‘to extend their sympathies to the Widows and Orphans in extreme want – the smallest donation will be thankfully received by the Inspecting Commander of the District – the Collector of the Customs, or by the proprietors of the respective Newspapers, and duly acknowledged.’
By April 4 a list of the donations received at the Customs House was published. Among the named contributors were: Mrs Waddy, Cloeast - 5 shillings Major Boyd - 2 pounds Boyd children - 1 pound 5 shillings
Dr. Lindsey’s servants - 6 shillings and 6 pence
Mrs Harvey, Bargy Castle - 4 pounds
Harvey children - 2 pounds Robert Hughes, Ely House, his family and servants - 2 pounds 5 shillings
The dead were laid to rest in the little graveyard at St Peter’s Church, Kilscoran. It is a beautiful Church in beautiful, quiet, leafy surroundings. The graves are still well marked today, though the headstone inscriptions, sadly, have become more weathered and illegible with every passing year. This tragic story, part of our history, should be told. Those who drowned should be remembered. Think of them on St Patricks Day.
(Three years later in 1838, as a result of an appeal from the Coastguards, Rosslare got its first Lifeboat station – Rosslare Fort No 2).