20/11/2014
A great piece of writing in last weeks Connacht Tribune by Michael Muldoon on a wonderful idea by Tommy Flaherty in not only commemorating one of Aran's most well known fishing fleet trawlers in days gone by, but also the generations of people who worked and sailed upon her.
Aran’s Ark
by Michael Muldoon
Last winter’s storms caused great damage along the West coast - and the Aran Islands were among the many places where huge seas rolled ashore.
Recent visitors to the Islands have been wondering just how bad the locals expect next winter to be when they notice local man Tommy Flaherty working on an old boat in a field beside his house.
What makes tourists wonder even more is that Tommy and his wife Sally live on one of the highest points on the island with incredible views of Galway Bay, Connemara and the west coast of Clare.
Of course there is a perfectly good explanation for all this work which has its roots in the commemorating of one of Aran’s best known trawlers, the MFV Ard Scia.
This boat was launched in 1966 by Tommy’s late uncle Ciarân Gill and his wife Margaret and for many years helped train many young island lads who were lucky enough to get a berth on her.
Ciarân and his two brothers Matt and Sylvester, all three of whom died too young, are fondly remembered, as the Ard Scia and the Gills and indeed all the Aran boats were always willing to help out with goods and passengers in the days when the ferry service to Aran was not anything like what it is today.
Before Ros a’MhiI was developed, bales of hay, drums of petrol, groceries, meat, bread, blocks, timber, calves, day old chicks, Christmas trees, funerals and stranded passengers were among the variety of items carried from Galway when the fishing boats operated from Galway docks.
It was a ritual also that the crews would never go home without a selection box of pastries from Griffin’s or one of the two Lydon bakeries.
Wintry Saturday evenings in those days would see a line of lights strung out along the bay as more than a dozen Man trawlers headed home after their week’s fishing.
While Ciarân was always wary of petrol, he was never known to refuse when the great Jack Lohan would arrive moments before departure with a trailer load of five gallon drums.
Having smokers aboard, Ciarân made sure to keep them and the petrol well separated.
Without petrol, the dozens of Honda 50s and some of the few cars on the island would have been parked up in some shed.
Alas, changes in fishing regulations, time, technology and quotas have seen the Cill Rónáin based fleet scattered and decimated and those days are but a memory now.
The Ard Scia featured prominently in the 1970 Jim Mulkerns’ film An tOileanach a d'Fhill which starred local actor Micheãl Ó Conghaile from Cill Mhuirbhigh.
In 2011 the Ard Scia was decommissioned and scrapped but the old wheel house and galley, where many a cup of tea was brewed and drank, was rescued and brought home with a view to restoring it as a memorial to the old boat and the men who worked it.
Passing locals have taken great delight in seeing the old wheelhouse being slowly surrounded by a boat like structure and look forward to when the project is completed.
Like his three uncles and his late father, former lifeboat coxswain Tomás Ó Flatharta, Tommy has spent many years at sea and is one of the most accomplished and successful fishermen on the coast.
Always a committed community worker, it is great to see that a man who always had a good eye for the future also has a keen eye for the past.
So if you find yourself some day on the road to Dun Aengus and spot this memorial, spare a thought or a prayer for those who once fished this old boat in all types of weather.
