2011 is the fiftieth anniversary of the successful raising of the almost intact early seventeenth- century Swedish warship Vasa from the mud at the bottom of Stockholm Harbour. It represents one of the greatest maritime archaeological recoveries ever carried out. After the salvage of the ship in 1961, it was conserved and restored and can be seen in a specially built museum where it has attracted millions of visitors over the years.
Author: ss
The wanderer at Kingstown and John Masefield
The Poet Laureate John Masefield was essentially a sea poet; the sea was what he knew and wrote about best. He we discuss his relationship with the Wander and that ships connection with Kingstown (now Dún Laoghaire)
The sinking of Arandora Star
The torpedoing of the Blue Star Line’s 15,000-ton luxury liner Arandora Star off Bloody Foreland, Donegal on 2 July 1940 is one of the hidden histories of Second World War Ireland. Though the sinking was reported in the local press in Mayo and Donegal, where it is still remembered, it never made it into the national consciousness due to wartime censorship.
Slave Ship Amity (1701)
The history of slavery is probably as old as that of mankind itself. Hundreds of thousands of slaves built such classical civilisations as Greece, Egypt and Rome. Viking Dublin was a major slave trading port in its heyday. However, for the purposes of this story I will deal only with the transatlantic slave trade whereby from twelve to twenty million African slaves were transported to the Americas over a span of four hundred years.
Crescent City – Mexican Silver Dollars
Mexican Silver Dollars at Galley Head, recovered from the cargo of the Crescent City
M.V. Kilkenny Shipwrecked
Austin’s own account of his experience of being ship-wrecked
Irish Poplar
The story of the fist ship acquired by Irish Shipping
Fethard Lifeboat Disaster.
need to transcribe ?
Maritime Art and Dún Laoghaire
Illustrated talk given to the Dún Laoghaire Borough Historical Society on Feb. 21st. 2007.
Tayleur was lost at Lambay
The sailing ship Tayleur was lost at Lambay just north of Dublin on 21 January 1854. Of the 650 aboard only 290 survived, merely three of the hundred women survived and only three of fifty children reached shore. Known as the “First Titanic”