Lost at Sea: Memorials to Merchant Seamen, Coastguard, Royal Navy & Marines.

It is not surprising that so many Sailors are commemorated at Carrickbrennan, a graveyard adjacent to an important seaport. Of the 250 memorials recorded so far at Carrickbrennan, 26 commemorate men who served in the Royal Navy, Royal Marines or in the Merchant Marine and their families. Two monuments commemorate incidents where great loss of life occurred: the loss of the transport Rochdale in 1807 at Seapoint and the drowning of 6 Coastguards in Kingstown Harbour in 1861.

The majority of these burials can be found in the southern and western sections of the graveyard where there is also a large incidence of memorials to military and other colonial personnel (see: Serving The Empire).

Several Naval Commanders and Captains are commemorated. These include:

We are interestingly informed that Commander Hamilton Burke was "… great, great grandson to Major Edmund Ulick Burke who fell at Aughrim, July 12th 1691". Of Captain Carlisle Kent we are told "… He was good and brave and true and one of the defenders of St. Jean D'Acre (Acre / Akko) under Sir Sidney Smith in 1799." This refers to a failed siege undertaken by Napoleon in his North African campaign. Note that Captain Carlisle Kent was aged only 13 years at the time.

Other Royal Navy personnel include:

Several Royal Marines are interred. Their memorials are usually inscribed with the Corps motto Per mare, per terram.

Other sailors include:

Two great tragedies at sea are recorded on inscriptions at Carrickbrennan. In their time, both received great publicity for their incidence of loss of life, cowardice and courage. The earlier inscription (No. 246) commemorates those lost in the notorious double shipwreck of the 19th of November 1807. Weston St. John Joyce, writing in 1920, recounts the double disaster:

"On … the 18th November, two transport vessels, The Prince of Wales and The Rochdale, sailed in the company of some others from the Pigeonhouse harbour with volunteers for foreign service drawn from Irish militia regiments. A snowstorm set in soon after their departure, accompanied by a violent easterly gale, and on the following morning they were observed labouring in the heavy sea outside the Bay to the southward, endeavouring, as it was believed, to return to the harbour. As the day advanced the snow fell so thickly that it was impossible for them to see their way, while the sea was so violent that they could not come to anchor. After a long and futile struggle, The Prince of Wales was driven onto the rocks behind Sir John Lees' residence, Blackrock House. The long boat was launched, and Captain Jones, the crew, two soldiers and the steward's wife and child jumped into it and rowed off as speedily as possible. In the darkness of the night they seem to have rowed for some distance along the shore, of the proximity of which they were ignorant, until one of the sailors, falling overboard, found that he was in shallow water. Upon this the whole party walked ashore and made their way to Blackrock, where they found shelter. Extraordinary to relate they made no effort whatsoever to rescue the passengers on board (about 120 in number), who were left to their fate and perished without exception.

The fate of The Rochdale was even worse. On the day after her departure she was observed from Blackrock, labouring heavily in the offing, burning blue lights and firing guns as signals of distress, but the weather was such that no succour could be afforded. She threw out several anchors, but they dragged and snapped their cables, and she then drove with bare poles before the storm. Driven gradually towards the shore in the direction of Sandy cove, she swept in the darkness past the old pier at Dunleary, and struck on the rocks under the Martello Tower at Seapoint, half a mile from where The Prince of Wales struck. Of the troops on board, their families, and the ship's officers and crew (some 265 in all), not one escaped, and their mutilated bodies were found in great numbers next morning strewn along the shore.

When the ill-fated vessel was driving past the pier at Dunleary, the inhabitants of the adjoining houses could hear the cries of the terrified passengers and the reports of the muskets which they fired to attract assistance. Some people on the east side of the old harbour seeing the flashes and hearing the reports, ran to the westward in the hope of affording help, but on reaching the road at Salthill, they were obliged to lie down behind the parapet… to protect themselves from the bullets fired in the dark by the despairing troops on board.

The wrecked vessel was poised in an extraordinary manner on the rocks at the foot of the tower, and lay so close to the shore that a 12 foot plank sufficed to reach to her quarterdeck, but at the time she struck, the night was so dark and the snowstorm so dense that the unhappy passengers were doubtless unable to see anything off the vessel, and were consequently unaware of their proximity to the land. The Tower…was probably unoccupied at the time.

Nearly 400 lives were lost in this double disaster, and for days afterwards the bodies of men, women and children were cast up by the sea along the coast from Merrion to Kingstown. The bodies of The Rochdale victims were in almost every case unrecognisable owing to the violence with which they were dashed to death on the rocks or torn to pieces by the action of the sea. Most of them are interred in the old Monkstown churchyard while those from The Prince of Wales were buried in Merrion."

Joyce also informs us that afterwards, Captain Jones of The Prince of Wales and some crew were charged with murder as they were accused of removing the ladder from the cabin to the deck, presumably to stop other passengers trying to escape on the long boat. The case was dismissed however, as no witnesses had survived.

There is one simple memorial (No. 246) to most of The Rochdale victims, possibly they were buried in a mass grave. It is a plain scroll-topped limestone headstone set against the western wall of the churchyard, just beside the gate. The inscription reads:

Memorial No. 249 commemorates two further victims of The Rochdale disaster: Major Charles C/Gormoran and his nephew, Ensign Robert Waid, both of the 97th.

Memorial No. 232 does not seem to mark a burial place, but was erected to commemorate the heroic part played by 6 members of the Coastguard, who lost their lives in the great storm of February 9th 1861. On the morning of February 9th, the sea was still very rough after the violent storm of the previous night. The flotsam and jetsam being dashed against the pier included mutilated human bodies, lost in the shipwreck of the of the brig Neptune the night before. Five Coastguards, lead by Captain John McNeill Boyd were bravely attempting to pull the corpses from the sea when a powerful wave swept them away. All six were drowned including Captain Boyd who had been in the process of taking off his great coat when the wave struck, and was thus unable to save himself. The only survivor was the Captain's black Newfoundland dog who refused to leave his grave in St. Patrick's Cathedral churchyard and starved to death. The dog's ghost is said to haunt the Cathedral, being last sighted in the 1950s.

The six immediately became celebrated as heroes. There was a large public funeral and among the monuments erected to their memory was the one in Carrickbrennan.

The memorial consists of a substantial stepped plinth with 1 marble and 3 limestone panels inset on the sides. The marble panel is a relief carving depicting the attempted rescue by the men. The other panels are inscribed. On the plinth is set a sculpture of a broken mast, complete with pulleys and rope, presumably symbolic of loss at sea.

The monument is inscribed thus:

Researched by Tom Williamson, Robert Kennedy & Cian Kennedy.

Sources: Local History Files: Dunlaoghaire Public Library.
The Neighbourhood of Dublin: Weston St. John Joyce. 1920.