Willie Bates - Man Of The Sea

The following article is taken from the Kilmore Parish Journal of 1994–95.

WILLIE BATES was born at Ballyburn in January 1910 and after a life full of activity died suddenly on May 2nd, 1994. Son of John and Catherine Bates, he was to be the eldest of a family of five boys and five girls.

As a boy Willie spent most of his spare time around the fishing boats in the Quay, which held more of a fascination for him than the small farm at Ballyburn. He did well in primary school in Kiltruk, but secondary school was a luxury beyond reach back in those days. He was an avid reader all through his life, reading widely on a variety of topics, especially anything with a hint of the ocean in it.

Willie’s calling was to the sea and at the age of sixteen he joined the trading schooner Edith May carrying coal to Kilmore Quay from Newport, South Wales, and agricultural produce back across the Irish Sea. On account of fierce storms buffeting the three-masted schooner, he often recalled how one passage from Wales to Wexford took six weeks. Contrast that with today’s 99 minute crossing by high speed catamaran!

At eighteen he joined the Arklow based schooner JT&S sailing between Ireland, England, Scotland and Wales, remaining with Tyrrells of Arklow until his early ’twenties. A letter written home from Scotland to his mother in October 1930 survives to this day. This shows a great loyalty to family and place:

“I have not got any boots for Cit and Nell yet, but I will send some money when I get to Skerries P.G. I hope you are keeping clear of the rocks, and I suppose Daddy and Marks are working away and making the best of the worst... I am well and weighs 12½ stone and I am hoping to be around home for Xmas”.

On a visit to Dunmore East a short time later he made friends with the skipper of a salvage vessel who offered him a job. Salvage work followed in Waterford and Cork and later along the south and east coasts of England. These were the 1930s when half the labour force was out of work and Willie considered himself lucky to be employed. Among the diverse experience gained in the salvage business was working underwater as a “frog-man”.

Willie came back to the Quay in his mid-20s, bought the MFV Pride of Helvick and worked the local grounds with his younger brother Mark. After a further period of salvage work in Yorkshire, while Mark operated the boat at home, Willie came back for good, obtaining work as motor mechanic on Kilmore’s first motor lifeboat, the Ann Isabella Pyemont.

Two years on, in the months preceding the outbreak of the Second World War, he married his true love, Margaret Walsh from Knocktown, Duncormick. But for the remaining 55 years of his life he also continued his love affair with the sea and fishing.

Shortly before the couple’s first son Ray was born, Willie’s pride and joy, the 38-foot MFV Mystical Rose was launched at Tyrrell’s yard in Arklow. For the next decades the Mystical, as she was affectionately called, not only supported a growing family of five sons and three daughters but also acted as the Quay’s unofficial training ship, with many a young fisherman learning his paces on board, while fishing for shellfish in summer and whitefish in winter.

With the purchase of the MFV Girl Ann, later to be replaced by the MFV Glendalough, these larger boats subsequently became the main breadwinners for Willie’s family. Innovation and versatility paid dividends and in 1969 the launching of his 65-foot Thomas MacDonagh at Tyrrells set off a trend which saw several of this class of boat join the fleet during the 1970s, the golden days of fishing.

Willie’s middle son, Billy, was soon to take over as skipper of this boat, with the Mystical again taking pride of place with her owner. In addition to fishing for lobsters, crabs and crayfish in the early hours, she doubled as ferry boat to the Great Saltee from late morning.

Over the years a large number of visitors and Wexford people alike were introduced to the natural beauty of the islands and the coast. He loved telling how in May the ‘Big Island blooms up with flowers and birds’. He was a good ambassador for Kilmore Quay and the Saltees.

The storm of December 1989 and the bashing to pieces of the Mystical Rose was a sad time for him. He wept as he gathered up the remainder of the woodwork from the beach for firewood. This was later farmed out among the extended family for burning. But he was a man who loved the game of life and continued to live it to the full.

Every morning before he’d sit down for breakfast he would first go down to the pier to see what the latest news of the fishing was. The sea and fishing were at the centre of his life. Only then would he be content to sit down to eat.

In recent years, Maggie and his family had been urging him to retire and take it easy, but that wasn’t his way. On the last day of his life, last May, he went to sea, as he had done for almost seventy years. In the evening he went to a christening party for his 25th grandchild. Then he came home and died peacefully in his sleep, going to the God he had trusted throughout his life.

As Fr. Jim Cogley put it so well at his funeral, Willie had waged a lifelong battle against rust — he was determined to wear out, rather than rust out — and true to his word, he was to go on until he dropped. He was a patriarch and a leader in his community and encouraged co-operation between fishermen even before the co-op was formed in 1955. He has left a legacy to his grandchildren and great-grandchildren of optimism and love of life, place and work.

Willie is survived by three of his brothers and five sisters, all of whom are still close to their home patch. His brother and friend Mark died in 1987. Maggie and his children, in-laws, extended family and friends hold his memory very dear.

Anon.