Surviving members of the St. Columba’s crew came together last week to celebrate the 60th anniversary of Canon John Barry’s recreation of Columba’s voyage.
Jim Boyd, Alistair Jameson, John Connolly and William Patterson met up with locals, friends and family at St. Patrick’s Church in Bunbeg last Friday for a service conducted by Rev. Liz Fitzgerald.
The service was followed by a slideshow of the voyage, narrated by John Connolly.
A cup of tea, biscuits and buns were had in the hall beside the church afterwards and everyone later made their way to An Chuirt for lunch, where memories of those days of yore were re-visited and a wonderful feeling of camaraderie, even love, pervaded the whole occasion.
In 1962 Canon John Barry from Hillsborough in Co. Down had the idea to celebrate St. Columba’s leaving Ireland in 563 A.D. for Iona – the 1400th anniversary being the following year. He wanted to re-enact the voyage in the type of vessel that Columba and his twelve followers might have used.
The Canon was on holiday in Downings, Co. Donegal, and standing on the pier when a yacht, driven by Wallace Clark appeared under sail, entered the harbour and expertly swung around, still under sail and tied up.
They decided to partner up and approached Jim Boyd of Bunbeg, a curragh and boat builder, to build a large curragh which would carry thirteen men and about a ton of stores. Jim built a 30 foot long, 5 feet wide curragh, which would be rowed, or sailed in a favourable wind, which after testing, laden and unladen, was deemed suitable and a crew was then assembled
Billy Patterson tells his story of the voyage:
On 3rd June 1963 after a service in St. Columb’s Cathedral in Derry, we processed down to the quay where our vessel with about a ton of stores awaited. I had been designated the Stowage Officer, but like all other jobs to be done, we all mucked in. We were wearing brown saffron robes which were hand woven in Glencolumbkille and on our feet pampooties, ancient Irish cow-hide shoes complete with hair.
Canon Barry who should have been dressed in blue robes, being St. Columba, had gashed his head quite badly earlier that day while helping to load the curragh, and Wallace had to don the blue robes for our departure. On our shoulders we carried 14 foot long oars. The streets were lined as was the dock where the curragh was tied up.
All the family was there to see me off. We climbed in and after pulling out from the dock, we upped the saffron sail emblazoned with a large cross and surmounted by a white dove. The wind was wrong, but we wanted to show the sail to the well-wishers. The curragh had a figurehead carved by one of the crew, Richard McCullagh, which he called Fochintula after an ancient Celtic mythological creature.
We pulled away from the waving and cheering crowds and headed up the Foyle. After a couple of miles we pulled into the west shore of the lough and took off our monks robes and footwear, stowed them in bags and passed them over to the Tor of Moyle. This was a converted fishing boat which carried extra stores for us and with which we rendezvoused every so often. We wouldn’t need our robes again until we set out on the last leg to Iona.
Six men rowed for half-an-hour while six rested. Wallace sat on the stern seat, chart on knee and using the steering oar. As we rowed along the east side of the Foyle estuary we heard buzzing sounds and plops in the water around us. The army had a rifle range in Magilligan (pre-H block time) and it was active. None of us was hit, but even if we had, the bullets had expended most of their energy and only a light thump would have been felt.
We turned into the mouth of the Bann river and rested on the shore where we had some grub while waiting on the tide to become favourable for the next leg to Port Ballintrae. We never got to use the sail virtually the whole trip as we had an east or northeast wind and the design of the sail required at least a quartering southerly wind. We put in the first night at Port Ballintrae and slept in a boathouse on the pier.
Next morning we set off for the longest leg – the run to Islay. Fortunately the winds were light all the way, and fourteen hours later we approached Lossit Bay on the west side of Islay. As we got closer we saw a small figure on the headland waving enthusiastically and as we arrived on the beach we were greeted by that same man who helped us pull the curragh up the beach. Ian McArthur insisted that we all climb the hill to his nearby house, Lossit Farm, where we met his wife Mary and and his two small boys Archie and Angus.
We were handed tumblers of Islay Mist whisky while his wife Mary made us a meal of ham and spuds. After fourteen hours on the water the big kitchen was slightly unsteady and the whisky didn’t help but tasted great. It was a most generous and kind welcome to Scotland, and years later I made a return trip to visit the family, but Ian had died and the sons were running the farm. Mary was her usual smiling self.
Back: L to R.
Richard McCullough, Rev. Billy McCappin, Jim Boyd, Brian McKee, Terry McGinnis, Richard Hilliard, John Connolly, Rev. Stephen Cave.
Front: L to R.
Tony Orr, Billy Patterson, Wallace Clark, Canon John Barry, Alistair Jameson.
That night on the beach I had a touch of the ‘trots’. I hadn’t been wearing sun glasses and while rowing I was squinting at the sun glaring off the water all day which gave me a headache. Add to that a big meal washed down with whisky, and my tummy rebelled. I had to climb several times out of my sleeping bag and face the fury of the biggest midges I have ever been bitten by.
All our sleeping bags were arranged around a big campfire hoping the smoke would help keep the midges at bay. It didn’t. The beggars even got into the tightly laced sleeping bags. Next day the whole McArthur family and villagers from nearby came down to the beach to see us off.
Our next stops were on the islands of Oronsay and Colonsay. Again the weather was kind but not helpful as the wind was again coming from the northeast and we were heading north, so we couldn’t use our sail and rowed all the way. Each night we would carry the curragh up the beach and turn it over to rest a few feet off the ground on four trestles made from the stretchers be braced our feet against and two oars across them. At bedtime we crawled underneath to sleep.
The gamblers among us who preferred to lie in the open and take a chance of getting wet were lucky. On the island of Colonsay we were visited by the Lord of the Isles, Lord Strathcona and his wife. It would appear that our voyage was being monitored by the newspapers and by radio so that people had an idea when and where to expect us. In those pre-mobile phone days, when you went to the cinema, there would be a feature between the the opening short film and the main feature called Movietone News which kept people informed of world events which included our Iona voyage.
On board the Tor of Moyle was an elderly quiet spoken little Belfast man with a substantial moustache, no visible neck, a Sherlock Holmes pipe and a 16 mm camera with which he was recording our journey for E. T. Green our sponsors. Jack Nielson served in WW2 and was awarded the MM and Bar for bravery. Jack joined us periodically to film the action from on board the curragh.
A little ceremony each morning was to tie a bunch of wild flowers to the figurehead and then scatter them on the water that night. On 9th June, St. Columba’s day we had a service on the beach with the life raft as an altar, and Iona in sight over the sand dunes behind us.
We got to the island of Mull two days ahead of schedule and pulled in to Balfour’s Bay on the southwestern tip of a rocky dangerous shore. That left us with about a two hour row to Iona on 12th June, St.Columba’s Day. Because we had time to spare, we called in Henry Mercer in his Tor of Moyle, our support boat. He took us up to the isle of Staffa which houses the famous Fingal’s cave which on this day was unusually calm.
The basalt columns of Staffa are a continuation of the Giant’s Causeway in Co. Antrim which dips under the sea and comes up again on Staffa. We walked along the ledge inside the cave lah lahing Felix Mendelssohn’s ‘Fingal’s Cave’ composed on Staffa in 1830, just to hear the cavernous echo coming back to us. A gentle but brooding swell ran into the gloom at the back of the cave but it didn’t stop Wallace who stripped off and jumped about ten feet into the swell, quickly followed by a few of us younger guys in the team. Many people have visited the cave, but I would guess that not many have swum in it.
On the early morning of 12th June, we donned our robes and climbed into the curragh for the last leg of the voyage. It was a calm misty morning and there was an eerie silence which made us speak quietly. I often thought since, that anyone who chanced to see us from a hilltop probably made an immediate decision to give up the drink as he watched hooded figures rowing an ancient boat in total silence, appearing and disappearing in the mist hanging over the water.
The only person who spoke was the man who was leaning over the bow softly calling the location of rocks. Canon John Barry was now in the blue robes of Columba.
As we rowed the few miles to Martyr’s Bay on Iona the mist lifted and we saw the cruise ship Devonia anchored in the bay and a big crowd waiting on the beach. We came ashore to great applause and were greeted by and presented to various bods and churchmen including the Archbishop of Canterbury Michael Ramsey who had officiated at the Queen’s coronation ten years earlier.
A few prayers were said and doves (pigeons) released to carry the news of our safe arrival back to Ireland. This was followed by a long slow procession up the narrow road to the Abbey where forty eight Kings of England Scotland and France are buried. We propped our oars on either side of the great door before taking our places of honour for a service about the life of Columba delivered by Archbishop Ramsey.
My mother and various relatives had made the trip on the Devonia and we all returned to Ireland on that ship with the curragh hoisted up and resting on the deck. The Iona experience was one of the most enjoyable times of my life. I later called one of my daughters after the island.
