East Pier Maritime Murals

  The ADDISON is a small yacht owned by a local man called C.J. McHenry who lives just outside Wicklow Town. I came to know him from his walks along the East Pier when he would regularly rib me in his easy-going manner - "I don't see my boat on the wall yet, Pat!". Truth be told, few people had ever seen his boat, including his fellow members of the  Wicklow Sailing Club who believed it to be a phantom boat. In reality, however, CJ had been quietly working away with the help of a friend in repairing his yacht in the back garden of his house over a period of seven years. Finally, in 2023, she made her public appearance when she was lifted into Wicklow harbour as part of the annual Sailing Club lift-in.  CJ  and his beloved ADDISON took part in the Sailing Club's races on Sunday afternoons and Wednesday evenings. Alas, he was never particularly well-placed, as CJ readily admitted he was far from an experienced sailor. However, for one race when he invited three experie...

My mural of the Round Ireland Yacht Race was created in 2022, a few weeks before the biennial race organised by the Wicklow Sailing Club (WSC) in June of that year. The Round Ireland Yacht Race is Ireland's premier offshore yacht race. The 704 nautical mile course is the second longest race in the Royal Ocean Racing Club calendar. Micharl Jones of the WSC first put forward the idea of a non-stop race around the coast of Ireland, starting and finishing in Wicklow harbour. The inaugural race took place in 1980 with 16 pioneer boats, with Brian Coad’s RASSAY OF MELFORT returning home after six days at sea to win. The race still retains the original course: "leave Ireland and all its islands excluding Rockall to starboard". Since then, the fleet has grown steadily, attracting a record of 64 entrants from all over the world across various classes of sailing vessels. My circular mural is dedicated to the WSC as the home of the yacht race. Painted in the centre of the map of Ire...

The SOTA ARRITOKIETA is a large cargo vessel built in 1981 in the Astilleros Balenciaga Shipyard in Zumala, Spain. Her owners were the Sota Line based in the Basque Region, Northern Spain. With a length of 90 meters, she has a deadweight tonnage of 4,500 tons. The vessel traded with the Sota Line until 1987, when she became the MANGO and was owned by the Wilson Line until 2009. Then she was renamed the WAKIL STAR until 2012. Currently, she sails under the name ITIDAL, working in the Eastern Mediterranean. Owned by the Ism Group in Beirut, the Lebanon, she trades mainly between Turkiye and Beirut. Sota Line vessels regularly called to Wicklow Port from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s. They imported chipboard and other building materials from Spain. The SOTA ARRITOKIETA, as she was then, was the biggest ship of the Sota Line fleet, and probably one of the largest ships ever to visit Wicklow Port, although she was not as frequent a visitor compared to the fleet's smaller vessels. In A...

The BROCKLEBANK was one of a series of motor tugs built by W.J. Yarwood & Sons, Ltd., Northwich for Alexandra Towing Company Ltd., and was completed and launched by Lady Pamela Brocklebank in 1965. She was mainly used for ship handling in the busy docks at Liverpool, and occasionally carried out similar duties at Heysham, Larne, Belfast, and assisted with ship launching at Barrow. In 1989, she was purchased by the Merseyside Maritime Museum and manned by experienced mariners on behalf of the Friends of the National Museum, Liverpool. Normally berthed in the Albert Dock adjacent to the museum, she also attends maritime festivals around the coast of the UK and Ireland. She still sports the old operator's distinctive yellow, white and black band funnel colours! This classic vessel visited the port of Wicklow on 4th August 2003, which was a beautiful summery day. Remarkably, her crew were all retired experienced seamen, many of whom had serverved on board the BROCKLEBANK and during...

The sailing vessel, the SOREN LARSEN was constructed by the Danish family of Soren Larsen & Sons at their shipyard in Nykoping Mors in Denmark in 1949. The ship was mainly employed on the Baltic sea routes and north European waters, and occasionally ventured as far afield as Iceland, and the United Kingdom. In 1972, the ship was gutted by fire and was laid up until 1978, when the hull was bought by Square Sail Britain. Being fully restored under their watch, she was re-decked with iroko timber and re-masted with Douglas Fir, and finally re-rigged as a 19th century-style brigantine. The vessel's new homeport became Colchester in the U.K.  On resuming operations in 1979, the SOREN LARSEN saw extensive use in television and film productions, which helped in a big way towards her overall restoration costs. She became well known for her regular appearances in the BBC series 'Onedin Line',  and the films, 'French Lieutenant's Woman', 'In Search for the Mary Ce...

  The SOTA EDUARDO was built in 1974 by the shipyard, Astilleros Y Talleres Celaya in Bilbao for the Sota Line, which was based in the Basque Region in northern Spain. She was one of two small sister coastal cargo vessels, the other being named the SOTA ALEJANDRO. They both traded to Wicklow Port on a regular basis from the late 1970s to the mid-1980s with cargoes of chipboard and other building materials from Bilbao and possibly, Marin. Their cargo capacity was just over 1000 tons, which made them the smallest vessels owned by this company. On 15th July 1985, distress calls from the SOTA EDUARDO were received by emergency services  as the vessel had got into serious difficulties north-east of the Humber while on passage from the Spanish port of Marin to Scarborough in Yorkshire with a cargo of chipboard. Rescue helicopters from R.A.F. Boulemar and R.A.F. Leconfield were immediately dispatched to the scene, as were the R.N.L.I. lifeboats from the Humber and Flamborough. The ca...

The tugboat, the DUNHERON was launched and completed in July 1955 as the GOLDEN CROSS by shipbuilders, Scott & Sons, Bowling for Tees Towing Co. Ltd., Middlesbrough.  The vessel held this name until 1968, when she was sold and her name changed to the  DUNHERON, a name which she held for many years under different owners. At one stage, from 1972 to 1977, she was under the Irish ownership of A.C. Cranes Ltd., Dublin, and after that was operated by Carmel Tugs Ltd. of Bromborough until 1991. In 1996, she was purchased for preservation by a Captain White of London, and was reputedly owned by actress, Suzie Wong. On 30th October 2006, she assisted the Royal Yacht, the BRITANNIA on an overseas departure and was the sole escort for that vessel on the final stage of her last voyage in 1997. During this deployment, her name reverted to H.M.R.T. (Her Majesty's Royal Tug) GOLDEN CROSS. In 2012, this interesting vessel was bought by a group of volunteers and moored at Ardentinny, Scot...