The crew of the steam fishing drifter John Summers, which has just arrived in Galway, bring the news of the rescue on Saturday evening, after a thrilling battle with the gale, of the crews of two Connemara open sailing boats conveying turf across Galway Bay to Kinvara.
The John Summers was sailing to Kilronan, Arran Islands, and about two o’clock, when off the South Sound of the islands, two fishing boats were seen. Both were obviously in distress, as a storm had broken suddenly about half an hour before.
It was noticed that the sails of one of the vessels had been torn away and she was being tossed about helplessly. The other Connemara vessel signalled that she was in difficulties also, but as her sails were intact it was decided that they would have to go first to the helpless boat. At this time the two sailing vessels were a few miles apart.
The John Summers set off to the aid of the helpless boat, and when they overtook it they found it was the Columcille, of which the occupants were Coleman Royce and Peter Ridge, of Rosaveel, Connemara. By skilful manoeuvring, and not without a good deal of difficulty, the two men were taken on to the John Summers. The Columcille soon afterwards ran up on the Clare coast and was pounded to pieces on the rocks. Then the John Summers returned to the rescue of the other boat, which in the meantime had been battling bravely against the storm. On coming near it was found that the boat was the Monte, and its occupants were Patrick Sullivan and John McDonagh, of Carraroe, Connemara. In the struggle against the storm Sullivan had been struck on the head with a piece of flying woodwork, and when he and McDonagh were taken on to the John Summers Sullivan was bleeding profusely and was in an exhausted condition. He later recovered. The Monte was taken in tow by the John Summers, but as they were entering Kilronan harbour the Monte cracked as a result of her terrific straining in the storm and she sank.
The John Summers was in charge of Captain Ritchie, and his action and that of his crew has been reported to the National Lifeboat Institution.
Lahinch is doomed unless £16,000 can be expended on defences to cheek the ravages of the sea. Slowly but surely it is giving way before the battering of the Atlantic, writes an ‘Irish Independent’ special representative in mid-February.
Permanent defences must, be erected, because patchwork is only a waste of time and money. This is the opinion of experts and of residents who are watching with growing apprehension the estimated yearly inroads of four yards along the beach.
Only one who has visited the place can appreciate the terrific force of the waves here. Giant breakers are pounding relentlessly against the promenade wall, and heavy stones dislodged from a high cliff about 310 yards away are being hurled against it with a force that only the most massive defences could withstand.
The past winter. has been one of the worst experienced in Lahinch within living memory.
The long, high ridge of stones and shingle at the western end of the promenade has been, I was told, pushed back about 15 or 20 yards by the sea during the past few months. During high tides or storms waves break on top of it and are carried inland in clouds, of spray. Soon, it is feared, the sea will claim the low-lying land at the back and cut off the famous golf course from the town. In places at the back of the links the sea has eaten in up to 50 yards, I was told, during the past 25 years.
Mountainous Seas.
So mountainous has the sea been here since Christmas that not only have the waves come over the promenade, 27 feet high, on several occasions, but the spray has fallen in showers on the roofs and chimneys of houses — some of them three storeys high. The sea has even coursed along one of tho principal streets, and 25 yards away from the promenade edge has torn, up the tarred surface of the road, compelling householders to build temporary defences outside their floors.
In one untenanted house facing the Atlantic steel shutters are used outside the timber shutters to keep out the waves, but they offer poor resistance, being dislodged almost every night. Only by constant vigilance during the past month has the town been saved.
On one occasion about a fortnight ago the sea was prevented from breaking through by workers throwing dozens of bags of sand into a break suddenly created. Had the sea got through, residents are convinced that half the town would have been swept away.
Because the ground is much lower to the back, and as many houses are built on a sandy foundation, they would fall an easy prey to the sea.
Constant Repair Work
‘They talk about Greystones and other places,’ said Mr, Considine, a County Council clerk of works, ‘but here you have the full force of the Atlantic.’ He was in charge of a gang of men carrying out a slow and most laborious work. In the hope of preventing the sea from eating under the promenade, they arc putting down concrete protections. To prevent the tide from carrying away the day’s work during the night, it has to be covered with timber, and two feet of shingle and stones, all of which has to be removed every morning before work can be begun. Were it not for the constant attention of Mr. Considine and his workers, one can conjecture what the fate of Lahinch would be.
The. people have now centred all their hopes on tho Coast Erosion Committee, because the financial resources of the County Council are -unable to cope with this most difficult problem.
This famous beauty spot is almost solely dependent on visitors. Over 2000 persons are often present during golf tournaments. So much do the people fear the headway tho sea has made in recent years that all new houses, are now being built a considerable distance inland.
County Surveyor’s Opinion
‘There is no doubt about it, Lahinch must go if the Government do not build sea defences there,’ said Mr. F. Dowling, County Surveyor, to me. ‘And even if they ‘ do build them the place will be still in danger; but I would like to see the defences tested.
Every year, since the winter of 1923 when two houses had to be vacated, the County Council has spent £300 on repair work, he explained. The sand and clay on which some of the town, is built make no fight against the sea, and he did not believe that there were such seas and wind in any other part of Ireland as in Lahinch.
It was unfair, he said, to expect the rate payers to expend money here year after year. If the sea got in at the promenade it would sweep away the whole town. His estimate for the defences, which would consist of reinforced concrete, with a stone, facing, was about £16,000.
At Cappa, on the outskirts of Kilrush, the occupants of two homes are in danger of being washed out during a storm or high tide. For about a mile between Kilaysart and Labasheeda, the road along which the mail car deliveries are made is being attacked by the Shannon to such an extent that in some places there is scarcely room for one cart. Mr. Dowling ‘s proposal was to divert the road at an estimated cost of £2000, but the County Council turned that down owing to lack of funds.
At Kilkee in recent years tho sea has made tremendous caverns through the rock,and these cut clean under the road. People were living in houses over caverns and were not even aware of it. As most of Kilkee, however, is built on rock there is no immediate danger.
Noah’s Ark, oil on canvas painting by Edward Hicks, 1846 Philadelphia Museum of Arthttps://widgetworld3.wordpress.com/podcasts/
THE CATHOLIC PRESS, 16TH JANUARY, 1930
“THE ARK” IN IRELAND
Primitive Church in County Clare.
A primitive “church on wheels” is still preserved as a memorial of old times in a country church in County Clare, not far from Loop Head. In this region of small villages and scattered farms and cottages the parish priest, some 80 years ago found it impossible to obtain from the Protestant landlords even the smallest site for a church. He had a little wooden chapel made, very like the foreman’s hut one sees where a new road is being made or a building erected.
A shelf at one end provided a support for an alter stone. The door at the other end was opened wide when Mass was said. The hut was placed on four small wheels and moved round the district, now to one cross-road or roadside grass patch, now to another, for the Sunday Mass.
In the fine parish church long since erected, the hut that once was a movable chapel is kept on a raised platform in the aisle. It is locally known as “The Ark.” The beams that form the framework of its base show numerous marks of the knife, for emigrants starting for America, and later soldiers going to the Great War, took with them chips from “The Ark” as something like relics from the wooden chapel consecrated by so many Masses said in the old days, often to congregations kneeling in the mud and driving rain of a winter Sunday.
The Burren and Beyond 