An ode to the oldest lifeboat station in Ireland
REPORTER EOIN MAC RAGHNAILL HEARS TALES OF BRAVERY, AWARDS OF RUM AND THE PRIDE OF A COMMUNITY AS ARKLOW LIFEBOAT STATION PREPARES FOR IT’S OWN BICENTENARY
ON the eve of the RNLI’s 200th anniversary, volunteers from Ireland’s oldest RNLI lifeboat station in Arklow have been reflecting on their station’s remarkable past. A beacon of hope in stormy seas and home away from home for generations of brave volunteers, Arklow’s rich seafaring past and the historic lifeboat station are inseparably intertwined, with the coastal community offering up their time and money decade after decade to help keep their fathers, brothers, sisters and mothers safer at sea.
As a contingent of the current station crew chart a course for the RNLI’s 200th anniversary celebrations in Westminster Abbey, resident Arklow Lifeboat Station historian Michael ‘Mick’ Fitzgerald has been thinking about the 200-year connection between Arklow and the RNLI, which began with a cautionary letter about a raft of ships lost off the south Wicklow coast.
“In the early 19th century, the danger of shipwreck was an accepted way of life at sea, with a factual average of 1,800 shipwrecks a year around Irish and British coasts,” Mick said.
“A man called Sir William Hillary had a vision of a service dedicated to saving lives at sea, which became a reality in Bishopsgate’s London Tavern in March 1824, when he founded what was to become the Royal National Lifeboat Institution.
“Just two years later, Arklow was chosen to be the first RNLI station established on the island of Ireland, after Captain
James Dombrain, Inspector General of the Coastguard, wrote to the RNLI headquarters in London – on the December 2, 1824 – to request that a lifeboat station be formed at Arklow because four serious shipwrecks had occurred in the area in the previous three years.”
Captain Dombrain’s letter was the beginning of the 200year connection between the RNLI and Arklow, and, on August 3, 1825, following a meeting of the committee of management, it was agreed to open a lifeboat station at Arklow, with an order placed with William Plenty of Newbury for a 24 ft. x 8ft. eight-oared lifeboat at a cost of £130.00.
The lifeboat arrived safely in Arklow on November 30, 1826, with the seafaring town becoming the first in Ireland to establish an RNLI lifeboat station, just two years after the founding of the great institution.
“If you think about when this all started, in 1824, the average loss of life around the coast of Ireland and England was just unbelievable,” Mick continued.
“Sir William Hillary saw this going on, and he decided that something had to be done. That’s how it all started and what led to the station in Arklow, where four ships had been lost the previous year, in 1825.
“Much has been written about the crews that manned the lifeboats in those early years, and deservedly so.
“These crews were often to put to sea with only the strength of their arms to row with and sailing skills passed on from generation to generation to get them to a casualty and return all safely home.”
As Mick explained, the first mechanical-powered lifeboat - ‘John Taylor Cardwell’ - arrived in Arklow in 1915, 89 years after the first pulling and sailing lifeboat.
She was replaced by ‘Inbhear Mor’ in 1938, which served as the station boat for 30 years, launching on service 87 times and saving 98 lives.
Delving deeper into his archives, Mick unearthed a map showing the first recorded location for Arklow’s lifeboat house on South Quay, just below Arklow Bridge.
It was later deemed too far from the sea, with the station’s next location on North Quay somewhere opposite the 1873 boathouse, although its exact location is unknown.
“The boathouse and slip at South Pier, built in 1873, served as the location for the RNLI in Arklow for nearly 100 years,” Mick said.
“The end came following a severe storm in the late 1960s, which caused the quay walls to collapse, and the slip was also badly damaged. The lifeboat relocated to the dock after this event.
“The boathouse was reused as a saw sharpening business for a short while in 1974 and was finally demolished in 1975 to make way for the Japanese porcelain factory of Noritake.
“Following the damage to the 1873 boathouse, the lifeboat was moved to the dock and was to be permanently moored afloat. This building was to be the lifeboat house for the next 18 years until it was replaced by the present building in 1988.”
Listing the silver medals (a rare honour) awarded to Arklow by the RNLI over the years, Mick noted Coast Guard James Dillon, who was honoured in 1848 for getting a line on board and rescuing 18 crew from the wreck of the ship Calypso at Mizen Head, near Arklow.
In 1886, a Silver Medal was awarded to Coxswain Peter Kavanagh for rescuing 34 men from the wrecked ship Tennessarian, while Coxswain John Cummings received the honour in 1870 after he rescued five people from the schooner ‘Dove of Barrow’, which had sunk on Arklow Bank.
A further two medals were issued to Arklow in 1866 and 1877.
Curiously, in 1955, a case of rum was awarded to the Arklow lifeboat by the Sugar Manufacturers Association (of Jamaica) for a service (over 17 hours at sea) on December 22 to 23, which was the longest winter service of 1955–56 by