The Last Voyage of the Schooner Isallt.

December 1947: Mystery Surrounds the Last Voyage of the Schooner Isallt.

At 11.45am on Thursday, December 4th, 1947, the auxiliary schooner Isallt, with a crew of seven, sailed from Dublin Port bound for Waterford with a cargo of fertilizer. The vessel never reached Waterford.

It was reported that the Isallt was the only ship to leave Dublin Port on that date, as severe weather had been forecast. Leaving Dublin, the voyage was smooth at first, but nightfall brought an increased wind from the south-east, and a heavy sea rapidly developed. Off the Wexford coast, the storm grew violent.

It was suggested by the knowledgeable mate, who had many years of experience of the sailing dangers along the Irish coast, that the vessel would be safer putting back into Arklow, but the captain persisted in proceeding. A large steamer was even seen to turn back and signalled its intention to the schooner. All this time, the south-easterly wind sent huge waves lengthwise against the schooner, forcing her gradually closer and closer to the Wexford coast. The chief engineer had his two engines going at their utmost, but despite his efforts, the schooner continued to drift shoreward under the pressure of wind and waves.

At 10 p.m. came the first indication of disaster. The bow of the schooner touched bottom; she had come right into the coastline, leaving no room to navigate her back to safety. Distress signals were sent skywards, and bedclothes were set on fire to attract attention to their plight. The crew were in deadly peril on the rocks, with the tide rising fast.

Help was not forthcoming, so an order was given to launch the lifeboat. With difficulty, it was launched, but just as the crew were pulling away, it was swamped by a wave that came over the bow. Another followed, capsizing the boat and throwing all seven men into the water.

Two of the crew succeeded in reaching the shoreline, about 100 yards away, in an unconscious condition. One was Joseph Whelan, aged seventeen, of Sandycove, Co. Dublin, who until the previous Tuesday had been working in a Dublin bakery as a van boy. He succeeded in rescuing deckhand John Corkish, aged thirty-three, of Wicklow, by going back into the water, where Corkish was clinging on for dear life. They made their way up the cliff at the north beach in Ballymoney and later reached the safety of a nearby farmhouse, where they were made comfortable.

Two bodies were washed up on the beach. One was that of John Kelly, the engineer and a native of Dublin. The other was that of Anthony Harris, from Sale, Cheshire, who had chartered the vessel. It had been his intention to bring the schooner to the West Indies, where it would trade between the islands.

The body of Miss Mary Young, also from Sale, Cheshire, was later found at Courtown Harbour. On Christmas Day, the last body was found there — that of the mate, Thomas Corkish, father of John, aged sixty-two. A native of the Isle of Man, he had lived in Wicklow for over forty years. In 1916, he had served on HMS Tiger at the Battle of Jutland.

That left just one person unaccounted for — the master of the vessel, Captain Charles John McGuinness, better known as “Charlie,” and nicknamed “Nomad.” Strangely, and perhaps mysteriously, his body was never found.

The Arklow RNLI lifeboat Inbhear Mór was alerted at 4.35 a.m., launched at 5.20 a.m., and made her way to Ballymoney — a distance of about ten miles — in a south-easterly gale with heavy seas running. By the time they arrived, no one remained on the shipwrecked vessel, and no assistance could be rendered. They stood by until daybreak before returning to Arklow.

Readers of the Tides and Tales blog may recall Conor Donegan’s account of McGuinness’s exploits in bringing a consignment of arms and ammunition to Waterford Harbour aboard the Frieda for the IRA in November 1921, at a time when treaty negotiations at No. 10 Downing Street were drawing to a critical conclusion — just weeks before the Anglo-Irish Treaty was signed.

See: https://tidesandtales.ie/charlie-mcguinness-and-the-freida-gun-run-to-waterford-november-1921/

Captain Charlie McGuinness had lived a life full of colour, excitement, contradictions, and controversy. Gunrunning to Waterford Harbour in 1921 was just one small part of an extraordinary career in which he sought adventure all over the world — and seldom failed to find it.

Born in Derry on March 6th, 1893, he had run away from home to sea when he was fifteen years old. Two years later, he was involved in the first of several shipwrecks, drifting for two weeks in a lifeboat before being rescued near Tahiti. He next worked as a pearl fisher in the South Seas for a year before resuming his nautical career.

In August 1914, following the outbreak of the Great War, he joined the Royal Navy. Learning of the Easter Rising in 1916, he deserted the Navy but later joined the South African Army, in which he fought in East Africa. Captured by German forces in 1916, he managed to escape by trekking through the jungle.

In 1920, he returned to Derry and joined the IRA, leading a flying column. In February 1921, McGuinness gained much attention for his instrumental role in the sensational and daring escape from Derry Jail of prisoner Frank Carty, an IRA Sligo Brigade Commander. Later that year, he was involved in gunrunning to Waterford Harbour.

In March and April 1922, McGuinness was again involved in landing arms and ammunition from the schooner Hannah at Ballinagoul in West Waterford — the largest single shipment of arms and ammunition ever to reach the IRA.

In 1923, McGuinness attempted to settle down in New York, where he had emigrated after allegedly supporting Chiang Kai-Shek, whose Chinese forces were being organised to resist the Japanese. In New York, he established himself as a building contractor.

However, in 1928, upon hearing that Commander Richard Byrd of the U.S. Navy was forming an expedition to Antarctica, he enlisted and served as a navigation officer. At a reception on his return in 1929, McGuinness is said to have presented the Mayor of New York with an Irish tricolour, which he claimed to have flown at the South Pole. 

Smuggling rum between Canada and the United States was his next escapade, during the time of Prohibition. He then spent time in the USSR, where he claimed to have worked as a harbour master in Murmansk.

His autobiography, Nomad, was published in 1934 and gave a fascinating account of his hectic life up until that time. McGuinness subtitled it ‘Adventures of an Irish Sailor, Soldier, Pirate, Pearl-Fisher, Gun-Runner, Rebel, and Antarctic Explorer.’

Pax Whelan, O/C of the IRA’s Waterford Brigade, remarked that the book “did not tell a quarter of it!”

In the 1930s, McGuinness decided to try the ‘worker’s paradise’ of Soviet Russia. He later claimed, “I was obeying a call — an urge to investigate firsthand the most sensational social experiment attempted in modern history.” After arriving in Russia, he worked at various jobs in the ports of Leningrad and Murmansk. The worker’s paradise was obviously not to his liking, and he took the first chance he got to leave.

In late 1936, McGuinness joined the International Brigades in the Spanish Civil War but soon deserted after disagreements with the authorities. He returned to Ireland, where he penned newspaper articles, mostly for the Irish Independent, praising Franco and recounting in lurid detail the anti-clerical excesses of the Republican government in Spain.

Having ordered two Motor Torpedo Boats (MTBs) from Great Britain in May 1939, the Irish Government set about the process of establishing a naval service to defend Ireland's neutrality when World War II started in September of that year. The order for MTBs was increased from two to six, and the Marine and Coastwatching Service was established in September 1939. The former Royal Naval Base at Haulbowline, Co. Cork, was reactivated to act as a base for this service. By 1941, the Marine Service consisted of ten craft: six motor torpedo boats plus four assorted vessels. One of the ‘assorted vessels’ was the schooner Isallt, bought by the Marine Service to be used as a training vessel. Assigned to the Isallt was Charlie McGuinness.

The Isallt (134 tons, 94’ x 23’ x 10½’), originally a three-masted schooner, had been built and owned by the firm of D. Williams at Portmadoc, a coastal town at the north of Cardigan Bay in Wales, in 1909. Since 1974, the name of the town has been changed to Porthmadog.

It is recorded that in 1910, she made the quickest passage ever recorded by a sailing ship: eighteen days from Conception Bay, Newfoundland, to Runcorn, Cheshire. The vessel came through World War I unscathed and, shortly after, came into the ownership of the Cadogan family on Cleare Island, West Cork. Over time, one mast was removed, the rigging altered, and two auxiliary engines were fitted. With Skibbereen as her port of registry, Isallt served Ireland well during a time of economic difficulties, mainly carrying coal to many southern coastal ports.

On October 15th, 1934, during a gale with a very heavy sea off Anglesey, on the North Wales coast — one of the worst gales in many years — the Isallt, bound for home from Birkenhead with a cargo of coal, sent up distress signals. The crew were taken off safely by the Moelfre RNLI Lifeboat. The abandoned vessel stood up to the gale, and later, the crew were able to re-board and bring Isallt into port.

After World War II ended, Isallt was sold by the Marine Service and bought by a group called the South of Ireland Shipping Co. It was from this company that Mr. Harris had chartered the vessel. Her first voyage in 1946 was a rather inauspicious one, as she had to be towed into Dublin by the Dublin Gas Company’s SS Glenbride, having become disabled in a heavy sea off the Baily Lighthouse at Howth. Isallt was laid up for some time following that incident. As we have read, with Captain McGuinness back in command of a familiar vessel, Isallt left Dublin on December 4th, 1947, on her fateful last voyage.

In his seminal book, Irish Secrets – German Espionage in Wartime Ireland 1939 – 1945, author Mark M. Hull makes the point that when the Irish Marine Service was formed in 1940, Charles McGuinness saw himself as a natural leader for an important command. Instead, he was made a chief petty officer and assigned to the Isallt, the training vessel, to teach recruits the rudiments of seamanship and navigation. The author goes on to suggest that it was probably out of a desire to do something exciting, rather than an impetus to commit high treason, that McGuinness found himself in a series of contacts with German agents. His sense of adventure seemed to overwhelm him one more time, and he naively sent a message to the German Legation in Dublin that he was in a position to assist Axis nationals who wanted to leave Ireland, that he had important information about Allied shipping, and that he wanted to contribute to the Axis war effort. It never occurred to McGuinness that mail to the German embassy would be examined.

Günther Schütz was a German spy who had escaped from Mountjoy Jail, and it was intended that McGuinness would skipper a vessel to take Schütz to Brest in France. However, the house in which Schütz was hiding was raided by the Special Branch, looking for someone else, and Schütz was re-arrested and sent back to prison. His rendezvous with McGuinness never took place. McGuinness was arrested and sentenced to seven years in prison on June 5th, 1942, for attempting to report information to a belligerent power. While in prison in Athlone, McGuinness met Schütz and told him he was to be the captain of the boat to Brest. While also in the Athlone prison, McGuinness interacted with Hermann Görtz, considered to be the most successful Nazi spy in Ireland during World War II.

McGuinness did not serve his full sentence, being released at the end of the war. In 1947, Görtz failed in his appeal against deportation back to Germany. While in the Alien’s Office at Dublin Castle on Friday, May 23rd, he swallowed a phial of poison. He was rushed to nearby Mercer’s Hospital, but attempts to save his life were unsuccessful. He was buried on the following Monday at Deansgrange Cemetery in his Luftwaffe uniform, with the coffin draped in a Swastika flag. Some mourners gave the Nazi salute. The Irish Times reported that among the mourners was Mr. Charles J. McGuinness.

Pat McCarthy, who has written and published extensively on Waterford during the revolutionary decade (1912–1923), including the gun-running episode of 1921, considers Charlie McGuinness to be by far his most interesting character in Ireland’s Revolutionary Period and the later parts of the 20th century. Pat says that both his father Paddy and Uncle Billy were members of the Maritime Inscription, the naval reserve force in Waterford during the war years. They would have received nautical training at the Naval Headquarters at Haulbowline from Charlie McGuinness. Pat says that both men were in total awe of him and, like Pax Whelan and many others, believed that he had survived the wreck of the Isallt and would turn up someday!

Writing about the loss of the Isallt in the Waterford Standard on December 13th, 1947, journalist Diarmuid Brennan describes Charlie McGuinness as follows:

McGuinness was the toughest chunk of human material I ever met. Three out of every four people who had come to know him well, got it into their heads that he was the toughest man in the world; the fourth couldn’t help but conclude that he was up amongst the first half-dozen.

Brennan had planned to collaborate with McGuinness on additional writing of his memoirs and had intended, at one stage, to be aboard the Isallt on her voyage to Waterford. Luckily for him, his plans were altered, and he did not sail. He goes on to state that McGuinness believed that the world’s best sailors came from Waterford and that he had been impressed by the Waterford men that had trained under him six years earlier. His intention may have been to try and draw from this pool of sailors for his intended trip to the Caribbean.

Charlie McGuinness was undoubtedly a very strong swimmer, yet the mystery remains: how was it that two deckhands managed to swim ashore from the shipwrecked vessel, just one hundred yards from the shoreline? Why was his body never found?

The story goes that a nephew of Charlie McGuinness swore in 1955, while going down an escalator to the London Underground, he saw his Uncle Charlie coming up the other side. Charlie smiled and spoke four words: “You never saw me.” Before he could get to the bottom and chase back up, the man had vanished.

The final words go to two Irish Times reviewers, Aoife and Adrian Grant, writing about a re-publication of Nomad in 2019:

Charlie “Nomad” McGuinness defies the neat packaging that the present often attempts to wrap the past in.

Their final two sentences read:

One constant in his life was his loyalty to adventure. More importantly, he was loyal to the sea.

Notes by the author:

Thanks to Dr Pat McCarthy for his assistance with this article.

Sources: 

Wreck and Rescue on the East Coast of Ireland, Dr John De Courcy Ireland, Glendale Press, 1983.

Irish Secrets – German Espionage in Wartime Ireland 1939 – 1945, Mark M Hull, Irish Academic Press, 2003.

The Irish Times, December 6th, 1947

The Wicklow People, December 13th, 1947

Waterford Standard, December 13th, 1947 

‘On the extraordinary memoirs of an Old IRA gunrunner and adventurer.’

Breandán MacSuibhne, Irish Independent, August 30th, 2020. 

‘Loyal to the sea: the Derry sailor who fought in WWΙ, joined the IRA and International Brigade.’

Aoife and Adrian Grant, The Irish Times, January 31st, 2019

https://lifeboatmagazinearchive.rnli.org/

https://ballymoneybythesea.com/the-isallt/

https://ballymoneybythesea.com/captain-of-the-isallt-charles-nomad-mcguinness/

https://wicklowtown.ie/welcome-to-wicklow-town/thomas-corkish-a-sailors-story

https://www.irishtimes.com/opinion/may-27th-1947-1.583426

https://www.theirishstory.com/2019/05/13/herman-goertz-a-german-spy-in-wartime-ireland/#.Y-a3sXbP3IV