Cork Harbour Tragedy

It was about tea-time on December 12^th 1942, just outside Cork Harbour. It was during the war so there was a black out and the entire harbour was in complete darkness, you couldn’t see anything. All that could be heard was the hum of the diesel engines, the roar of the sea and the noise of the wind.

There was a southerly gale howling, it was cold and the sea was rough with a flood tide and waves of up to twenty-five feet in height.
World War II was raging but Ireland was a neutral country so any ship entering Irish ports had to engage a Cork Harbour Pilot and have their papers inspected by the Port Control Authorities, a form of homeland security, to ensure that no ammunition or weapons were on board.
The Irish Poplar was approaching Cork Harbour. It was a vessel that weighed 3,282 tons and stretched 352 feet long. It was built in 1912 and bought from Greek owners.

She had sailed from Dublin without cargo and was riding high with the top of her rudder and propeller visible above the water level. She was ordered by Cork Harbour pilots to proceed to the Dognose Buoy and to wait there to pick up a pilot and a Port Control officer.

She waited there as instructed and she would then be brought to Verolme Cork Dockyard where she was going to have a refit.
At about 6pm, the Pilot boat left the Camber in Cobh to bring the pilot to the ship while around the same time the Port Control boat left Haulbowline to meet the same incoming vessel.
The pilot launch was first alongside, and the pilot, Pad Lynch, climbed the Jacob’s ladder to the deck of the Irish Poplar. Next came the Port Control boat, which went alongside the pilot boat, and Chief Petty Officer Frank Barry safely boarded to carry out his inspection.
The normal procedure at this point would be for the Pilot launch to return to base in the Camber in Cobh and the pilot would stay with the ship.

The Port Control launch on the other hand would stand by until the inspection was completed and would then be signalled to collect the Port Control Officer and return to base. If conditions weren’t favourable, the normal routine would be for the Port Control launch to wait a short distance away from the ship.
When CPO Barry finished his inspection he looked over the side of the Poplar and when he didn’t see his launch he signalled with a lamp. When he got no reply he still wasn’t too concerned because of the bad weather he assumed that maybe it had returned to Cobh along with the Pilot launch for safety reasons.

The Irish Poplar signalled the Department of Defence in Spike Island and they sent out another launch to collect the Port Control Officer. At this stage the Irish Poplar had started its journey and was almost at the Spit Lighthouse in the inner harbour on its way to the dockyard.
Unknown to any of them at the time, there were five men dead in the water. There had been a serious incident. After depositing the two men onto the Irish Poplar, the two launches had difficulty getting away from the bigger ship.

They tried to go forward, but the weather was too severe so they went astern. With the bad weather, the blackness and the rough sea they somehow ended up under the turning propellers of the Irish Poplar with catastrophic consequences.
It was around this time that a man opened the front door of his house on Spike Island to find an exhausted and drenched figure with no shoes on, lying on the ground in the storm.

It was James Horgan who had been on the Pilot launch and he swam almost two miles from the Dognose Buoy to Spike Island. He was in the water for at least an hour and a quarter and he raised the alarm. The strength and the courage he displayed to make that swim in those conditions without a life jacket was amazing.
James Horgan was taken to the hospital on Spike Island and while he was able to provide little detailed information on what had happened, it was enough to start a large scale search.

Nothing was found at the scene of the accident. At about 10pm a body was seen in the water near the Deepwater Quay in Cobh about three and a half miles from the Dognose Buoy. It turned out to be the body of Leading Seaman William Duggan.
Around midnight some of the debris of the Pilot launch was found in the Camber and elsewhere along the waterfront. Two caps were found that were belong to Frank Lloyd and Frank Powell. One piece of timber that was found was identified as part of the Pilot launch and it looked as if it had been sliced by something sharp.
At a subsequent inquiry into the accident, Lieutenant W. Richardson and Lieutenant James White, of the Marine Service Depot in Haulbowline, gave evidence of having examined the wreckage of both the Pilot launch and the Port Control launch.

They found that the damage to both vessels was consistent with them having been struck by the propeller of the Irish Poplar.
To give an indication of the type of weather conditions that prevailed that night, the Ballycotton Lifeboat was called out to help with the search and it took them four hours to get to the site of the accident compared to the normal journey time of an hour and a half.

Coxwain Sliney testified that it was one of the worst nights of bad weather he had ever experienced.
On that day, the town of Cobh lost five of its citizens; John Higgins of Connelly Street, Francis Lloyd of King’s Street, Willie Duggan of Bellview, Frank Powell of Plunket Terrace, and Patrick Wilshaw of The Mall.

They were all young men. The oldest was only forty five years old and the youngest was a mere 25 years of age. Four of the five were members of the Cork Port Control Service which was a branch of the Marine Service. The fifth man, John Higgins, was a member of what was then known as the Cork Harbour Pilotage.
The fickle finger of faith smiled on one man that night. George Agger Senior was a Chief Petty Officer in the Marine Service during World War II and should have been on duty on that occasion.

It is possible that he would have been one of those who perished but as it happened he had another event to attend that night. His son was being born at home and so he arranged to swap duties, a decision that probably saved his life.

George junior was born at 11 Roches Row, just three doors away from where Pilot Pad Lynch and his family lived.
That baby turned out to be Father George Agger SVD, who was born and raised in Cobh until he entered the priesthood and left for foreign shores. He celebrated his 70th birthday when he officiated at a small ceremony in Cork Harbour to commemorate the 70^th anniversary of this tragic event in 2012.