SAOIRSE

 

Just over a hundred years ago, a record-setting achievement drew 10,000 onlookers to Dún Laoghaire seafront, County Dublin, on 20th June 1925 to raise a cheer as a small Irish yacht sailed into history.

Commencing in Dún Laoghaire, the SAOIRSE (meaning ‘Freedom’ in Irish) had just become the first boat to carry the Tricolour around the world, sailing up the Irish Sea two years to the day since embarking on an epic circumnavigation of over 40,000 miles. The 42 foot (13 meters)-long ketch was also the first known small craft to sail the globe via the Three Great Capes, crossing oceans and surviving storms with neither an engine nor a radio on board.

Limerick-man Conor O’Brien, owner, designer and skipper of the SAOIRSE, made headlines around the world. This was seen as our nation’s first international sporting achievement, and the voyage would herald a new era of ocean-going sailing aboard smaller craft.

According to contemporary descriptions of the scenes in Dún Laoghaire, where bands played on the East Pier, and an aeroplane flew low over the crowd: “O’Brien emerged [on deck] in dark glasses. He was cheered and carried shoulder-high as people pressed around ... and then driven into Dublin in a procession of 100 motorcars led by one carrying a model of SAOIRSE, with his young godson, Conor Cruise O’Brien, dressed in a white sailor suit posing as Conor.” The Dublin Bay Sailing Club unprecedentedly cancelled their racing for the day so that their fleet could welcome the great circumnavigator home.

The original SAOIRSE was built in Baltimore, West Cork. O’Brien’s design for the vessel reflected his appreciation of craftsmanship and a traditional “medieval” style of boat. The master-builder, Tom Moynihan in 1922 insisted on O’Brien adding an extra 2ft to the stern to provide a transom of robust elegance. 

While we don’t precisely know her launching date, the characterful SAOIRSE was completed, commissioned and trial-sailed during the Civil War. We do know that in August 1922, she was carrying passengers and mail out of West Cork, as the area’s road and rail communications had been cut off in the ongoing conflict. She was to make her last visit to Ireland, on a voyage to Iceland in 1974. Eventually, the original SAOIRSE - or most of her - was lost in a hurricane in Jamaica in 1979.

While built in Cork, the original SAOIRSE had a historic Wicklow connection. Despite his tertiary education in England and Trinity College Dublin, and his aristocratic background, O'Brien was a committed Irish patriot. He was heavily involved in an Irish Volunteers gun-running operation. In July 1914, he transported 600 rifles on another of his boats, the KELPIE, from a German tugboat, landing them at Kilcoole in County Wicklow, a feat that occurred before his historic SAOIRSE circumnavigation.

In 2019/20, thanks to records of the boat held by the ILEN Project in Limerick, and to Conor O’Brien’s own drawings and photographs of his beloved vessel, as well as a set of hull lines take off by Uffa Fox in Cowes in 1927, a faithful replica of the original SAOIRSE was constructed by Liam Hegarty and his team of master shipwrights at Oldcourt Boatyard on the River Ilen, West Cork.

On 17th June 2023, an international Irish sailing event called the “Saoirse Rally” organised by the Irish Cruising Club, launched from Dun Laoghaire harbour to mark the heroic exploits and achievements of Conor O’Brien, one of Ireland’s most accomplished sailors.