Heroicrescuershonoured
RE-TRACING his late father’s footsteps, Councillor Ger Carthy says the refurbishment of the Rosslare Burrow Lifeboat Memorial will future-proof it for generations to come.
Cllr Carthy was speaking at a wreath-laying following major works carried out to refurbish the monument, the work carried out and organised by a hard-working voluntary committee and paid for by the county council.
He said it wad a great honour and he was humbled to be asked to lay a wreath at the monument, 35 years after it was officially launched and around 20 years since his father, the late Cllr Leo Carthy had attended similar ceremonies.
‘Little did Edward Wickham of the James Stevens and his crew, as left for Keeragh Rocks, know what a fine crowd would be here to honour their memory,’ he said, thanking the RNLI, Wexford Marinewatch, the sea scouts, the coast guard and the RNLI for their contribution to marine safety.
A wreath was also be layed on behalf of the Norwegian government by Solve Steinhovden, Charges d’Affaires of the Norwegian Embassy, in memory of the heroic rescue on the wreck of the Norwegian schooner ‘Mexico.’
The ceremony commemorates the participation of the Wexford Lifeboat ‘James Stevens No 15’ and the Steam Tug ‘Wexford’ in the famous rescue of the crew of the schooner on the Keeragh Rocks in February 1914.
The ‘James Stevens’ was based at Rosslare Fort Lifeboat station - which has long since vanished under the waves- and was commanded by Coxswain Edward Wickham.
The tug ‘Wexford’ was commanded by Captain Laurence Busher.
The first boat to arrive at the ‘Mexico’ wreck was the Fethard Lifeboat ‘Helen Blake’.
She was soon driven onto the rocks and was tragically lost, along with her Coxswain Chistopher Bird and eight members of her total crew of 14 men.
During the subsequent rescue of the survivors of the Mexico crew and the Fethard lifeboatmen, two members of the James Stevens crew, bowman Bill Duggan, and James Wickham, 2nd Cox, manned a small punt in the raging seas to save the 10 men stranded on the rocks despite the punt being seriously holed.
For this heroic act they were decorated by the RNLI and the King of Norway and received many other awards, including being presented by the GAA with All Ireland medals to mark their bravery.
They remain to this day the only persons to receive such an honour outside of the field of play.
In 1982 a local Rosslare And District voluntary committee erected the monument in Rosslare Burrow to mark this famous historic event and a commemoration ceremony has been held there annually ever since.
The careful and meticulous refurbishment of the monument site includes the completion of a stone replica of the ‘James Stevens,’ designed and completed by Billy Doyle, Burrow Lifeboat Memorial Chair and funded by the committee through local contributions, and is mute testament to the bravery of a those who sacrficed all to help others.