Chart of Tramore Bay

Chart of Tramore Bay

Thursday 1 October 2015

Two Unknown Foreign Ships, September 1783

Extract of a letter from Waterford September 9th 1783;
About 4 o’clock on Saturday evening during a severe gale of wind, a large vessel, square rigged, was observed near three leagues from Tramore, in very great distress. Several guns were heard during the night and in the morning there was no tidings. She seemed to be a foreigner, had white sides and the sea ran so very high that there was no possibility of affording her assistance.[1]
This sighting is possibly connected to reports from Waterford, later in the same month:
Last Sunday a sloop from Flushing, for this port, laden with iron and staves, was, in a hard gale of wind, wrecked off Ballymacaw, and four of the crew drowned. The captain, two men and a boy, were providentially saved. Mr Michael Farrell immediately brought the survivors to his home, (in that village) and treated them with the politeness, humanity, and hospitality, which characterise this kingdom.
      Monday the sails and rigging of another vessel were seen floating off Rathwhelan, and the bodies of four men, supposed to have belonged to her, found among the rocks. It is thought she came from some port in France, as several casks of wine and brandy, French gloves, almonds, and cotton, were drove ashore at Craden-head, Messrs Rogers and Lymbery, coast officers, on hearing of the wreck, instantly went to protect the property.[2]
It is interesting to note that John Rogers remit extended as far as Rathwhelan. It is noteworthy that he and the coast officer, John Lymbery were brothers in law. John had married Lymbery’s sister Jane, ‘daughter of Gregory Lymbery of Ballinlough and Elizabeth Stephens on Friday 6 February 1777’.[3]



[1] London Chronicle, 25 September 1783.
[2] Finn’s Leinster Journal, 27 September 1783.
[3] Henry F Morris, 'The Principal Inhabitants of County Waterford in 1746’, William Nolan, Thomas P Power, Editors, Waterford History and Society, Dublin 1992, page 320.

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