The Pirates of Cork Harbour : 16th to 18th Centuries. A Theatrical History.

James P. McCarthy

Monday 24 February 14 Content

The Landscape as a Stage... and its Props...Cork Harbour. A Story of its Dramas...Plots and Characters. Visualisation of the past. The Voices of the past...perhaps.

Monday 24 February 14 Ancient Mariners: A Soliloquy on Cork Harbour. Of Ancient Greeks, Of Ptolemy’s ‘map’, Of Iron Age wrecks, Of Amber trade routes(Venetii),Of wine amphorae and other imports, Of Nemedians and Formorians at Great Island, Of Roman Britain its navy, trade..Cuskinny, Of Early Christian monks, Of Viking raiders / Viking settlement (cantred of the Ostmen territory in the harbour) and slaves and international trade.

Of Normans and Adam deHereford and the Flemish fleet, Of Templar preceptories at Cobh and Hospitalers at Aghada and other monastic orders (Trabolgan) , Of Medieval Cork merchant princes and Lombards at Buttevant, Of the Hansa fleets and breakdown of relations with England..Irish fishing attacked...

...a busy harbour through the centuries and busy traders...leaving a concatenation of vague memories....but, apart from Viking marauders, what of piracy?

Monday 24 February 14 Cork Charters and Medieval Mariners Henry II Charter: 1185..Cork city given same laws and customs as Bristol...the two ports become closely linked...Bristol piracy in later centuries.

Henry III Charter: 1242..Cork citizens and their heirs should have all the prisage of wine, custom and cocket as well as by land as water in all pills, creeks and strands within the port of the city and should be free of all tolls, customs and prisage.

1354-60: Cargos of hides from Cork sent to Calais, Flanders, Normandy and Bordeaux including wool and woolfells. A return cargo from Bordeaux, in one instance, with wine and other merchandise and jewels of gold and silver which unfortunately for the owners, one being the mayor of Cork, was captured on its return journey off the coast of Brittany and the custodians and cargo held to ransom. This century is marked by the appearance of Spanish and French pirates on those coasts.

Henry VIII Charter: 1500 ...defines area of the Harbour jurisdiction...Benowdran to Rerour and Carrigrohane.

Freedom of the Harbour - subsequently Elizabeth’s problem...A Privelege of Free Transaction granted by Edward VI(1547-53)which gave a safeguard that foreigners or enemies trading within the city and port were not to be molested, even in times of war.

Mayor of City is also Admiral of port though sometimes in dispute depending on who controlled the Harbour in times of turmoil...throwing the dart custom exactly how old...16th century or Viking?

Monday 24 February 14 Fortifying the Harbour 1 - A Quick Snapshot Towers...Galweys, Blackrock, Roche’s city tower, a Roches Pt question ( is there something older than the 18th century there?) signal towers, beacons, coastal watch.

Strategic Castles - early maps, Belvelly and Sir Walter

Raleigh, Monkstown (1636)...John Archdeacon fires a few Coastal Castles cannon balls.

Forts...Haulbowline, Great Island, Dog Nose(Carlisle and Rupert), Ram’s Head(Camden), Spike (castle to fort) ...from batteries evolving to forts in some cases, others abandoned.

Batteries - Rostellan, Cobh

Coastal Towers Major periods of defenses upgrades...Elizabethan (towers and starforts), Inchiquin (Batteries and forts), and Vallencey ( Spike and Westmoreland).

Martellos Urban Towers Monday 24 February 14 Harbour Maps and Charts • Granvi!e Co!ins and earlier charts from Dutch and Portuguese...Portolan charts as predecessors. Collins published his charts as Great Britain's Coasting Pilot in 1693....influence of Samuel Pepys.

• What do we know of Harbour Pilots, very little ...Thomas Randal story 1750s.

• Hydrographic Surveys : Mr. Drury’s Survey of Cork Harbour 1788...note house of a Mr Drury in Saleen area in Taylor and Skinner’s Road Maps of Ireland 1776.

• Signal Towers of Ireland website.

Books printed for Seamen, 1600s onwards.

(The Seaman’s Grammar 1692. The Sea Gunner’s Manual. 1692)

Rev. John Lindsey’s Cork Harbour Chart 1759

Monday 24 February 14 Fortifying the Harbour 2: Some surviving plans.

Francis Candel map 1589

Haulbowline star-fort and castle circa 1610.

Monday 24 February 14 Pirates

Pirate Characters - came from all social levels..Middle Classes, Lords, the Poor and Dispossessed.

Main Pirate ‘Kingdom’ / Haunts were Barbary Coast(Winter), West Cork(Summer), Caribbean.

Global Reach: American North East coast, West Indies trade, Royal cargo from Spanish Americas, Atlantic Coast of Britain and Ireland to Europe and Africa, to India and the East India Companies trade ships.

Monday 24 February 14 The Tudors • Overview:

• Main Points: Political state of Ireland during their time. Gaelic Lords and Anglo-Normans in control of lands. First Plantations...Kerrycurrihy Model Colony...Crosshaven locality. Land communication difficult, so coastal travel easier. Hansa trade fading. South West of Ireland coast trading with European ports (Spanish and French)and deep sea trade with Newfoundland colonies beginning 1560s...West Cork ports initially, fishing, fish and hides of many types of animals traded. Spanish and French bartering with Irish rebels and offering them iron, guns, powder. Desmond Rebellions take place(1569-73, 1579-83 and Munster laid waste. Spanish Armada 1588. Battle of Lepanto in Mediterranean 1571.

Monday 24 February 14 Henry dies, Edward VI - Mary 1st (1553-58)

• Second Quarter 16th Century we start our narrative: 1533 A Portuguese merchant ship called the Santa Maria was boarded by the crew of the Furuskewys and escorted to Cork where her cargo was sold by the Mayor( Galwey family...Dundanion near Blackrock) for 1,524 crowns. London requested he give up the ship and cargo but he refused...remember the conditions of Henry III’s charter...mayor as port admiral.

• 1536 it was noticed that under Irish Law that he English anti-piracy Act of 1536 under which English pirates were tried was not part of Irish Law. At this time there was a huge build up in England of pirates, many unemployed ex-navy, some merchant opportunists. Many move to SW Ireland to escape, because such laws not in force here but only as a base while pirating elsewhere including the Mediterranean....estimated that there was upto 2,000 men with substantial ships and munitions....our south coast a safe haven for them.

• Henry dies 1547. Edward VI becomes king until 1553...then Mary ..then Elizabeth 1st and the Elizabethan Age begins...the Age of William Shakespeare, Francis Drake and Walter Raleigh

• 1548 Cork merchants request permission of Lord Deputy to deal with 2 notorious English pirates who arrived in the harbour intent on business with a cargo of wines, figs and sugar. Some Cork merchants often dealt direct with pirates... but they were careful not to upset the authorities. or draw too much attention. Some pirates were treated as ‘personae gratae’ and even the mayor engaged in business with them.

Monday 24 February 14 Elizabethan Age (1558-1603) • Third Quarter Actions: England starts trying to impose laws and prohibitions on Irish trade. 1550 the export of tallow, butter and linen banned - but this ignored locally and so prohibition had no effect on trade in the creeks and havens along the South coast where it was stated that every year 200 sail of Spaniards fished and carried away beef, hides and tallow. The impact on the Royal coffers of this smuggling and Black Economy was not acceptable. By the 1550s planning for the construction of forts at (DogNose Pt) Carlisle and one at Ram’s head (Camden) begins.

• In 1551 a ship laden with goods, the property of 3 Cork merchants was boarded by an English pirate whose attempts were not successful. A list of commodities on board included wool and woolen mantles, over 1000 yards of Irish frieze cloth and skins of martens, calf, deer etc. By the early 1550s Cork citizens are requesting the building of a tower at Blackrock Castle to ward against pirates. Things seem to be tightening up.

• 1551 The Mayor and Council of Cork write to the Lord Deputy complaining that their whole coast is haunted and harassed by English adventurers. They say a great ship of Venice, 700 tons together with other vessels laden with Malmsey and Spanish wool has been driven into Cork harbour by stress of weather. Malmsey(fortified Greek wine) seized and sent as a prize to the king. There is much confiscation of ships and cargos now by the Corporation because Mayor/Port Admiral had to decide if a person was an honest merchant or dubious...but this led to corruption, so honest trading could be a hazardous affair in the harbour at this time. The Corporation also say they will not allow any soldiers or other people to leave the realm without special license or passport and that they will make a ‘strong fortress’ for the defense of the town...meaning of this intention is unclear, just city or harbour as well?

• 1552 Francis Drake and his fleet take refuge in a Cork Harbour creek ....(Toberavoid), on the Carrigaline to Crosshaven road....after being pursued by a Spanish fleet.

• 1565 Malta fell to the Turks...but their fear of European conquest beginning with the expulsion of the Moors from Spain in the previous century turned the North African states of Barabary,- that is, Algiers, Tunis, Tripoli then under Ottoman protection, into pirate kingdoms motivating 16th century corsairs to set out on their SEA JIHAD and joining their ranks were many disenchanted English and other European sailors who joined them ...renegadoes. e.g. John Ward, some become muslim and take muslim names. ..and Barbary piracy comes to British waters.

• The Kerrycurrihy model plantation takes place by early 1560s but in 1569-73 the first Desmond Rebellion kicked off by Baron FitzMaurice at Kerrycurrihy (Crosshaven area) and this then followed by second Desmond Rebellion in 1579-83....as a consequence Desmond i.e. South Munster severely laid waste by these wars and the Pacata Hibernia becomes a restless peace. See Pacata Hibernia Map of circa 1600...Blackrock and Galwey towers and ship illustrations.

Monday 24 February 14 The Armada Arrives 1588 Fourth Quarter Actions: 1579-1583 Sir Walter Raleigh takes part in the suppression of the Desmond Rebellion. Later Richard Boyle buys out Raleigh and some of his ships (incl The Pilgrim) and sets up industries in timber ...ship building, charcoal iron works, barrel staves to England...means massive deforestation...influence on sedimentation of harbour?.. Elizabeth 1st (the Pirate Queen) needs to solve financial woes, she has almost no navy, an Armada threat from Spain, so she creates privateers from adventurers and pirates and cobbles together a navy. 1585-1604 in these years the Anglo- Spanish war was waged and so many were recruited into her ‘navy’.

Ex-pirate Martin Frobisher was given a lucrative contract to supply the army during the first Desmond rebellion. Then he joined Drake, Raleigh and Hawkins as squadron leaders during Spanish Armada defense.. Afterwards he became a controlled asset and agent provocateur and was tasked to visit pirate haunts along the SW coast and let them know the Queen’s expectations. He had a Q-ship.

On Her Majesty’s Service: Royal officials were complicit in encouraging English pirates under French letter of marque to attack Spanish and English merchant vessels but this subterfuge became less indulgent as time went by. After the war when thousands of de-mobbed sailors of the Royal Navy were unemployed, many took to piracy. Some become Barbary corsairs, some operated off the British coast,(Wales and Cornwall for example) some continued a guerrilla war against the Spanish in the Caribbean.

Monday 24 February 14 Armada Aftermath and Lead into the Battle of Kinsale 1601

1582 at Blackrock Cork a ‘fort’ and tower erected to ward off pirates and invaders and thereby safeguard legitimate vessels plyiing in and out of harbour. 1587 Map by Francis Candell shows Carlisle fort location under consideration. Then the Armada takes place with the subsequent routing of the invasion as a storm blows ships towards Irish coast and many wreckages occur ..King Philip and Spanish economy significantly damaged.

1589 Sir Wm Herbert says of Munster ‘the province generally is a receptacle of pirates’.

Influential noblemen acted as ‘fences’ for piracy as Royal Navy was practically non-existant until time of James 1st. In 1599 a truce was struck with Irish rebels but in this same year the Chief Justice of Munster writes that foreign merchants brought in swords, headpieces, muskets and powder to sell to rebels at inflated prices. French ships come into Cork harbour to do business and deal direct with the rebels - as well as English soldiers in towns, and make huge profits. So George Carew, President of Munster, issues a proclamation to stop this.

Such activity is a lead up to the Battle of Kinsale in 1601. Roaring water Bay in West Cork is now becoming a major haunt for pirates and and Leamcon where Vice -Admiral Wm Hull is based is a welcoming place....and a welcoming local economy. Lord President Danvers (after Carew) says Munster is like Barbary, common and free for all pirates.

In Barbary the big haunt was Mamosa on the Atlantic Morocco coast. Pirates did the annual Pirate Round ..summer in West Cork, winter in Morocco...the reason for this movement annually to West Cork was that the royal galleys of France and Spain came out of hibernation after the winter and so Morocco was not safe.

These Pirates would arrive in large fleets in West Cork consisting of 10 or 12 ships apiece and neither merchant nor fisherman was safe from their depredations. With no adequate resources to confront them all the government could do was set one pirate against the other.....Noose (pirate) if caught or Letters of Marque (privateer) ... pirates coming here were English, Spanish, Portuguese and Dutch.

Monday 24 February 14 Kinsale and immediate afterlude

1597: All communication with Spain is stopped. But trade with France continues and also there is some evidence for trade with Hamburg, Ferrol(Galicia) and other ports frequented by the Genoese. But England has a growing merchant navy now and it tries to control Irish trade..the result was that ‘ legitimate’ economic activity was entered in the King’s ledgers and port books, but the rest was ‘off the books’ and trade with pirates by Cork merchants including English and Welsh was common. So Elizabeth 1st commissioned Lord Carew to exterminate the problem..but it proved too difficult and so a solution had to wait until James 1st took the throne, and assigned Thomas Wentwoth as Lord Deputy of Ireland (1632-9) to dealing with the task.

In 1608 Lord President of Munster Henry Danvers was found complicit in his dealings with piracy and removed. On one occasion after a group of pirates appeared on the coast of Cork and left unchallenged word reached London that Danvers had acquired somehow 20 chests of sugar and 4 chests of coral...London removed him from office saying this was a token of too much familiarity. Only English ship patrolling south coast was the Tremontane, 22 year old, leaky, decrepit and easily over run so Danvers took a relaxed attitude towards pirates. Some of the most notorious pirates of this time received a pardon and settled in West Cork, some building large houses.

Sir Arthur Chichester, Lord Deputy of Ireland (1609-1614) said there was no hope of controlling the sea coasts until planted by more honest subjects and the harbours secured. Sir Henry Mainwaring(1587-1653), an ex-pirate, said ‘Ireland may well be called the nursery and storehouse of pirates’. He later writes and publishes a Discourse on piracy dedicated to King James ...Mainwaring was notorious as a Mediterranean pirate also and his name was infamous in many ports there. So, this year is a backdrop to what happened in 1609 when pirates blockaded the mouth of Cork harbour.

Attractive prizes were passing off the Irish south coast included The Flota de Indias, the annual convoy which brought treasure of gold, silver and gems from the Americas to Spain.

Monday 24 February 14 Seventeenth Century Ireland : The Turbulent Century • Overview and Summary: Century opens with Kinsale Battle. Elizabeth 1st dies 1603 and James comes to the throne. Setting the Scene for James 1st. there is already a Triple Alliance(1596) treaty with the Dutch and French, so a London Treaty creates peace with Spain(1604).

• 1607 to 1627 Munster is still immersed in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Kinsale and the Flight of the Earls(1607) brings closure at a certain level but not at other societal levels.... the countryside is still effectively in native hands as some many clansmen do not accept the outcome of the Battle, this is also reflected on the water as some take to privateering on behalf of their clan leaders under they claim ‘letter of marque’.

Monday 24 February 14 The Century Begins • First Quarter

• Circa 1603 Haulbowline star-fort is built.Many native swordsmen are on the loose, so Sir Piers Crosbie suggests a plan to recruit them for the Swedish armed forces(1604-5).Because of treaties ( London 1604 with Spain and Triple Alliance with France and Dutch in 1596) most warships are now laid up and many unemployed English sailors are on the loose...adventurers and speculators build ships and employ them on a ‘no prey, no pay’....in both piracy and privateering. This cripples trade.

• Benefit of Clergy(1606)...it is discovered that if a pirate can read the law will go more easily on him...this provides an incentive for upper middleclass gentlemen to get involved. Rumours of another Spanish fleet build up on the Portuguese coast..so, President and Vice President of Munster issue Proclamations(two at Cork, one at Mogeely) to dispel this and also to warn citizens to report characters suspect of piracy. Chichester says no hope of control of Irish problem.

• 1609 two Harbour Blockades ...(Pirate fleets of Peter Eston...4 ships and 300 men, then John Ward with 11 ships and 1,000 men positioned further out on coast.). No English force on sea. Henry Danvers, Lord President of Munster, afraid to exit harbour. James 1st allows Dutch to clean up...fleet sent in 1611. Peter Ellis under letters of marque from MacCarthy Mor. James 1 and General Pardon 1612. Mamosa taken 1614. Then 1616 Sir Henry Mainwaring pardoned( book published Of the Beginnings, Practices, and Suppression of Pirates 1618)...signals end of Ireland/Morocco axis. Raleigh provisions at Cork. Burton takes Capt. Omalye ships and brings to Cork...pirates hung. An 1621 English expedition to Algiers under Sir Henry Mansel, Vice-Admiral and a nascent royal navy took place, but fails in attempt.....this was just the beginning of tackling a problem which would eventually take until the 1730s to resolve.

Monday 24 February 14 • Second Quarter: 1625-1650

• Roaringwater Bay....has become a major gathering point for pirates from many nations. Deputy Vice-Admiral Wm.Hull at Leamcon is friendly...pirate haunts exist also at Crookhaven and Baltimore.

• 1629 The Greyhound is captured by Peter Ellis. 1630 Rumours about in West Cork that Algerians would attack Munster...Haulbowline fort is a suggested target...the Sea Jihad has come to Irish shores...

• 1629 peace is resumed with France again and then peace again with Spain in 1630. Trade increases. Council Book of Cork records prizes and prisage 1631, 1634.

• 1631 Murad Raiis attacks Baltimore..major panic. 1631 Pirate John Nutt had 3 ships at Youghal...folklore re his treasure deposits at Capel Island with dead blackmen guarding them. Spike Island’s gold rock, Gold Stones near Crosshaven on Lindsey’s map, Gold Point at East Ferry. 1632 rumours that Baltimore type raid by Barbary pirates to be repeated somewhere along south coast. Thomas Wentworth (appointed Lord Deputy 1632) makes determined effort to rid harbour of pirates...and succeeds for a time. Wentworth says to Master of Rolls ‘nor were so much heard of a Biscayer these last two years’. Start of Irish Cattle and butter trade from Cork. But then onland the 1641 Rebellion erupts and a siege of Cork city takes place.

Peter Ellis, privateer, in his schooner the Tonn Cliodhna flying the MacCarthy flag under letters of marque from the MacCarthy Mor attacks Dutch ships in the harbour

Monday 24 February 14 Murrough O’Brien arrives on the Scene.

• 1642 The Confederacy of Kilkenny comes in to being and Catholic Irish army controls part of Ireland and eventually makes truce with King Charles 1st. Then fights against the Parliamentarians. Murrough O’Brein, First Earl Inchiquin (later of Rostellan) strengthens harbour defenses at Cork, Kinsale and Youghal ‘so fortified them that no Parliamentary ship could anchor in any of them’. and Cobh and Rostellan batteries, Camden and Carlisle batteries strengthened.

• But, then Murrough changes sides and supports the Parlaimentarians ... Presidency of Munster. Murrough takes over a fortified coastal stronghold of the Fitzgerald’s at Rostellan which he had already fortified for the Confederacy. Leaves his brother in charge and tells him to knock the battery wall but his brother fails to do so. Lord Castlehaven on behalf of the Confederates brings a fleet into the harbour and a Battle for the harbour ensues during which Corkbeg and then Rostellan are over- run. Prince Rupert, related to Charles 1st has fleet in harbour in 1649 and new fort/tower built at Dognose Point. But, then the Cromwellian fleet arrives and takes control of the harbour.. Charles I is executed in 1649.

• The Cromwellians are now in control of the harbour and Spike Island is used as a corral for those to be transported as indentured servants to Bermudas....results in 12,000 Irish living in Barbadoes. In 1654 Admiral Wm. Penn set out to accomplish Oliver Cromwell’s ‘Western Design’ which ended with Disaster in Hispaniola...Penn and Shanagarry. The West Indies was now the motor of global trade ( its sugar was called white gold in economic terms) and so control of it was seen as very lucrative to enhance state coffers.

Monday 24 February 14 From the Cromwellians to the Williamites.

• Murrough turns coat again in 1660. Murrough and son Wm captured by Algerians. Charles II restored. 1665-6 pirate vessel seized near Spike Island another vessel and £1,500 of goods.

• By 1660 the West Indies is in need of more slaves...its booming production of white gold(sugar) requires more slaves..Cork merchants involved in victualling ships engaged in slave trade from Royal Africa company.

• In 1666 Lord Orrery comments on how enemy might attack harbour..take the fort and Belvelly. President of Munster abolished.

• 1670 Pirates held in Cork under Vice Admiral of Munster...7 of 9 accused found guilty and sent in chains to London to hang..

• 1670 Algerians made raids off Cork and Kinsale and attacked 2 trading vessels and a number of fishing smacks..mixed Irish and English crews. 1677-82 Charles fort built in Kinsale.

Monday 24 February 14 A Rostellan Story, A Barbary Story and a Caribbean Story. • At Rostellan in 1674 Murrough O’Brien, 1st Earl of Inchiquin has died at Rostellan. A cannon made in Amsterdam in 1646 sits at the battery wall. Murrough it is suggested acquired the first yacht in Cork Harbour through his reconcilliation and friendship with Charles II. The initial stirrings of a water club begin at the Siddons Tower pier, Rostellan... an old defense battery tower subsequently remodelled as a bathing house.

• In 1680 his son William, lives in Tangiers. He was was once captured by Algierian pirates with his father and though his father was released, William was held in captivity for several years afterwards until ransomed for £7,500. During his capture he lost an eye. But now Wm O’Brien, 2nd Earl of Inchiquin, is Governor of Tangiers and in charged of British forces there. However, his control is overtaken by Muslim forces and he surrenders Tangiers and returns home to Rostellan, in semi-retirement. Re- enforcements from Kinsale arrive in Tangiers and rout the Muslim forces shortly afterward at the Tangiers version of Charles Fort...... strong coastal fortress. Remaining Tangiers troops re-enforced from Kinsale and surprise Moors. Then William comes out of retirement and is appointed Governor to Jamaica, unrest and a savage mutiny of absconded apprentices and slaves takes place. His health deteriorates, he dies and is buried in Jamaica. For Barbary the Beginning of the End has arrived though it will take many years, as yet to achieve this.. not until the Golden Age of Piracy ends in 1730, and even then, its remnants still constituted a problem in Moroccan waters for USA ships up to the beginning of the 19th century.

• In 1690, in Cork, the Williamite siege of the city is underway and the Salamander warship and another vessel sail up to the Grand Parade and bombard the city wall. But by 1691 Cork is again trading... mostly with Europe in the case of native shipping, while provisioning convoys for the West Indies trade and further north is lucrative, the control of this trade is in the hands of companies such as The West Indies Companies. Cork now has 50 vessels plying between England, France and Holland. But native and later settlers in West Cork still welcome pirates.

Monday 24 February 14 Cork: The Caribbean and Barbary...The 18th Century Begins. • First Quarter: 1700 Anne Bonny born....father was Cork attorney (surname Cormac or McCormac?)...off to Carolinas. 1704 Andew and Pierce Cullen set off from Cork with Peter Roche. Killed Captain and overpowered crew and set ashore. Then sold ship and cargo in Virginia. Roche then joined another pirate ship and Cullen Bros took up with pirate Captain Quelsh (Walsh?). Cullens had also served with the pirate Philip Roche.

• 1711 Agreed that Capt. Jonathan Swan, Commodore of the Jamaica fleet now in the harbour be presented with freedom of city. Same year “agreed that Jeudah Coen, Embassador from the Powers of Algiers, Tunis and Tripoli [Barbary] to the High and Mighty States General [Ottoman] be presented with the freedom of the city in a silver box”.In this year a large number of Anglo-American sailors previously engaged in privateering or on naval vessels found themselves unemployed, so they turned ‘en masse’ to piracy attacking whatever nationality they encountered...the age of Edward Teach(Blackbeard) and Callico Jack Rackham et alia.They disrupted the slave and sugar trade significantly. Ann Bonny attacked Spanish fleet, later significant in her trial.

• 1721 Philip Roche a Cork fisherman moves to city and becomes involved in shipping insurance and corrupt schemes to scuttle vessels. He then captured a sloop and with wife Francis set out to take larger ship coming out of Cork...killed Captain and crew but then sought bigger prize and were caught. Roche hanged at Newgate in 1723.

• In the later half of 1718 in the New World pirates were without a base, in decline and under growing pressure from naval forces and so they lost momentum. By 1719 most were on the run and so some headed for West Africa seizing poorly defended slave transport ships (Guineamen). By 1730 the Golden Age of Piracy was over.

• 1719 Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Cruseo. 1724 History of Pyracy is published by Captain Johnson( pseudonym Daniel Dafoe?). 1725 by now 3 ships were available to patrol the Irish coast...growth of navies seen as the key to eliminating pirates problem for good.

Monday 24 February 14 Of to the Caribbean for a bit of Buccaneering or further north to New England and Canada.

• Second Quarter: 1728 the commanders of several Men-of-War ships are made freemen of Cork e.g. Capt Brandon of the Privateer Ambuscade. The Caribbean is now the Cockpit of European trade. 1737 Cork pamphleteer Alexander the Coppersmith speaks of ‘ those who shipwrack trade in general...the barbarous practice of making wrecks, of ships in distress upon the very margins of the liberties of the city’. Imports from West Indies to Cork at this time include Coffee, Cocao,Sugar, Tobacco. Alexander says ‘French galleys always come hither assigned by a popish factor’.

• 1746 James and Mary Ellis and the privateer Active of Cork are in the harbour. A George Ellis is a merchant of Cork. Many Cork (or temporarily based Cork residents...e.g. John Fontaine(Huguenot) are ‘en route’ to the colonies in North America. 1749 the Privateer Samuel Dandy of Cork is in the harbour...protecting merchant vessels en route?

• Dutchman Vansenhoven at Lavitt’s Quay Cork, a sugar baker....quay then called Seven Ovens Quay or Vansenhoven Quay. Vansenhoven settles at Ballinacurra...some say founded settlement there. See Rocque’s map of Cork city and its illustration of ships in river channel adjacent Vansenhoven Quay and other quays.

• 1759 a New and Accurate Map of the Harbour is published by Rev. John Lindsey.

Monday 24 February 14 The Enlarged Navies

Third Quarter: 1750 Charles Smith’s Cork history records that the remains of a large rectangular fortification at Carlisle with platforms for gun batteries still existed at water level. A piece of local folklore recorded by Pat Fitzgerald of Aghada, speaks of a Strike Fire Lane in this locality which had a number of inhabitants who salvaged goods thrown overboard by passing ships...and sold them on. Strike Fire Lane, he seems to suggest, refers, perhaps, to some form of defense munitions at this location originally...but when, needs further investigation. Beware the Cork Coast in Foul Weather...a history of shipwrecks! 1752 The Voyages, Dangerous Adventures and miraculous escapes of Captain Richard Falconer intermixed with the voyages and adventurers of Thomas Randal of Cork, pilot...is published in Dublin. Cork merchants established among the merchant communities of Philadephia e.g. Stephen Moylan who established himself there in 1786 and owned whole or part interest in 6 trading vessels engaged in commerce with Lisbon.

In 1759 the Battle of Quiberon Bay takes place off the Brittany coast and a French invasion of Britain is prevented by Admiral Edward Hawkes....Cork citizens react joyfully and a statue commissioned...but Hawke was out of favour by the time the statue was finished. At Hawke’s request because of his subsequent rejection by Cork city the statue eventually found its way to Rostellan where it was mounted on a pillar on the foreshore with the statue facing inwards towards the demesne house. ‘What care I for Cork, that...smugglers and pirates’. Legend has it that the Sword arm fell off when the French land at Bantry Bay 1798. The Pillar is still there today but the statue has vanished.

Monday 24 February 14 The American Civil War and the Napoleonic War.

Fourth Quarter: Benjamin Franklin’s Irish Pirate. The 18th century was a time when Irish, sailors and captains put to sea in heavily armed, privately owned and licensed pirate ships fighting for and against the Yankees. Ryan’s fleet which included the infamous Black Prince was part of a private navy which included hundreds of Irish sailors commissioned by Benjamin Franklin to take the war to the British in their own home waters...Ryan remembered as hero of American Revolution. Ryan captured more English vessels in his Black Prince than any other during the war. John Paul Jones also served on the Black Prince and then Franklin gave him a very large warship called the Bonnehomme Richard, a gift from the French to cruise and attack British ships off the south coast of Ireland. Cork was then the main provisioning city for the British navy and there was a build up of the whole fleet there for a time. Cork true to its reputation in earlier times was The Oxslaying City and Slaughterhouse of Ireland to provision the navy and others. A fictional story about John Paul Jones on spying expeditions to Cork city was published in the 1860s called Andre Besnard: A tale of old Cork.

Visitors commenting: Luckombe visited Cork in 1779 and says ‘Spike Island is a noted place for smuggling for small vessels at high water steal in unseen by the Officers of Cork’. Three Dutch crewed East Indiamen are provisioning in the harbour at this time. 1788 W.O.B. Drury completes maps and soundings of the harbour of Cork. 1791 General Charles Vallancey begins Westmoreland Fort on Spike Island. Also completes a military survey of the south of Ireland. Fear of a French invasion in lead up to the 1805-15 Napoleonic Wars. Strengthening of harbour fortifications at Roches’s Point, Camden, Carlisle and Cobh underway. Chev. DeLa Tochnaye says ‘Cobh ...now so heavily fortified that there is no danger that any hostile vessel can enter’. On land 1798 Rebellion takes place and afterwards militias stood down so many recruited for India by East India Company to avoid civil unrest. At time of rebellion, according to folklore, sword arm of Hawke’s statue at Rostellan falls off.

French Revolution(1789-99), Trafalgar(1805), Waterloo(1815), Martello towers ..panic of a French invasion 1804 led to construction of 50 towers in Ireland. 1815 the Napoleonic War is over. Some formerly American privateers join the Liverpool /New York Black Ball line.Query Black Ball Head placename, West Cork.

Warlike Seamen sea shanty records battle between French frigate and British warship(disguised as merchantman) under command of Capt. Somerville, off Irish coast.

Monday 24 February 14 End of the Great Age of Sail

• First Quarter: Guard ship for the harbour is now the Hawke. The Barbary coast is still problematic for the Americans and their new navy. Barbary pirates were seizing American crews and merchant ships and demanding large ransoms so the USA declared war (the Barbary War) on them and sent in a large squadron. By 1805 Barbary had signed a treaty with the USA.

• In 1815, in this year the USS Constellation and other ships spotted a frigate sailing off the Spanish coast which was flying the Union Jack. The Captain suspected it was Algerian so he attacked, boarded and took 400 prisoners while 30 of the crew were killed including the Algerian Commander the legendary Hamidou Raiss, the mosr distinguished figure of the Algerian navy and ‘Master of the Seas’. This to many marks the final end of the age of Algerian pirates and of Barbary as a haven of piracy. In 1807 Britain abolished the Slave Trade and in 1808 the Napoleonic War(1808-1815) began. This again greatly enhanced commerce in Cork following on from the American War of Independence when the Naval Fleet was based in the harbour. But with the removal of the fleet...it became a quiet harbour and many counting houses fail and recession sets in...Thomas Crofton Croker’s the Cork antiquarian writing shortly afterwards says that looking back to 1815 and from there to the former days when the navy were based in the harbour and commerce was thriving as a consequence in the city..... (provisioning the navy was a huge source of income in city)... ‘the transition to peace has meant failure of banks and commercial houses, vacant stores, untenanted properties’...He hopes that prosperity will return without a basis in renewed hostilities.

• In Cork, all is quiet and safe..... Statio Bene Fide Carinis..... at last!...well?...navy press gangs at Ballinacurra and glass bottomed ale tankards.

Monday 24 February 14 Sirius and Steam Cork is very much involved in trade with America and Canada now, but mostly as a provisioning port for English company run trade, though some Cork merchants are trading also. A Cork timber merchant was importing from Quebec and bartering under bills of exchange for candles, hides and leather. Large fleets of merchant ships travelled in convoys because even up to the later years of the century there was still a risk from privateers(Civil War etc)...history and development of George’s Quay and Cotter Quay in city interesting in this regard...also Harte’s timber yard history near Washington Street.

But now the Age of Steam powered ships had arrived and the Sirius paddle steamer is in the harbour until it is wrecked off Ballycotton in 1847. Summer Holidays to Ireland becomes popular with the British middle classes and the railways link up to the shipping lines.

1861 Rev G.B. Gibson writes about the harbour (current and historical), its defenses and legends.

Popular fiction literature brings the Romantic side of piracy and the lives of old seadogs to life with Sir Walter Scott’s The Pirate (1822)and Robert Louis Stevenson’s Treasure Island(1883) and Kidnapped(1886)...note other Romantic literature re mariners e.g. Coleridge’s Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner.

At Cobh they sing about The Holy Ground, Blow the Man Down and the Irish Rover as street facade architectures with voluted chandlery and tavern frontages, old anchors and old wharf timbers echo a living presence of the past into the famine years and beyond. The huge corpus of shanty songs sung in all the ships which visited through the centuries, including the work songs such as capstan, bowline, ‘haul away’ songs. Becoming a memory: East Indiaman Becoming a memory: Royal Navy frigates heading into Cobh with Spike at left side. at Cobh with Dognose Pt in the distance.

Monday 24 February 14 Archaeology and Folklife

Whats in the Mud?...wrecks, piers (e.g. Rostellan), dock structures, a potential chronology from deposition layers of mud...note the dredging work circa 1908/9 carried out from Passage West to City to enable larger vessels to dock at city, during which discovery near Cork Rowing Club of the Cork Horns (Iron Age) amidst a week’s worth of dredging work removing timbers associated with the horns...a wreck or a trading station pier, published by L.S. Gogan of National Museum. Cliff erosion profiling along coastline...Ballycroneen and about 200 feet lost since first Edition Ordnance Survey map of 1841-2. Placename surveys. Rev Canon Power’s missing notes re the folklife of Imokilly.

Whats underwater? The National Wrecks Survey and Database.

Coastal folklife, folklore and placenames e.g. cliff , cove and cave names.

Brown Island Quay built 1880s.

Monday 24 February 14 Source Materials

Alexander The Coppersmith. Remarks upon the Religion, Trade, Government, Police, Customs, Manners and Maladys of the City of Corke. Tower Books, Cork, 1974 [Reprint of the 1737 edition].

Beresford Ellis, Peter. Terror of the Seas. [ re Peter Ellis pirate]. HollyBough, Cork, Christmas 2009.

Bicheno, Hugh. Elizabeth’s Sea Dogs. How the English became the Scourge of the Seas. Conway, London, 2012. [See appendices re ship types and tonnages etc].

Carroll, Michael J. Irish Pirates and Privateers. The Brethern of the Sea. Cork, 2007.

Monday 24 February 14 Carlova. John. Mistress of the Seas. Citadel Press, New York, 1964. [Biography of Anne Bonny]

Caulfield, Richard. The Council Book of the Corporatoion of the Cuty of Cork From 1609 to 1643 and From 1690 to 1800. J.Billings and Sons, Surrey, 1876.

Caulfield, Richard. The Council Book of the Corporation of Youghal From 1610 to 1659, and From 1690 to 1800. J. Billings and Sons, Surrey, 1878.

Chetwood, W.R. The voyages, dangerous adventures, and miraculous escapes of Capt. Richard Falconer. Containing, the laws, customs, and manners of the Indians in America...Intermixed with the voyages and adventures of Thomas Randal, of Cork, pilot...Dublin, 1752 [original edition printed 1720].

Crofton Croker, Thomas. Researches in the South of Ireland : Illustrative of the Scenery, Architectural Remains, And the Manners and Superstitions of teh Peasantry. London, 1824.

Curtis Curtain, Margaret. THe Council Book of the Province of Munster c. 1599-1649. Irish Manuscripts Commission, Dublin, 2008.

Monday 24 February 14 Defoe, Daniel. A General History of the Pyrates. Dover Publications, New York, 1999. [ original edition published under pseudonym Captain Charles Johnson, London, 1724].

Dickson, David. Old world Colony. Cork and South Munster. 1630-1830. Cork University Press, 2005.

Earle, Peter. The Pirate Wars. Methuen, London, 2004.

Ekin, Des. The Stolen Village. Baltimore and the Pirates of Barbary. The O’Brien Press, Dublin, n.d.

Exquemelin, Alexander O. THe Buccaneers of America. Dover Publication, New York, 2000. [original edition published 1678].

Fitzgerald, Pat. Down Paths of Gold: A Portrait of Cork Harbour’s Southern Side. Litho Press, Midleton, 1992.

Gibson, Rev C.B. The History of the County and City of Cork. Fercor Press, Cork, 1974. [ original edition 1861].

Gosse, Philip. The History of Piracy. Dover Publications, New York, 2007.

Monday 24 February 14 Kingshill, Sophia and Westwood, Jennifer. The Fabled Coast. Legends and Traditions from around the Shores of Britain and Ireland. Random House, London, 2012.

Konstam, Angus. The Pirate Ship 1660-1730. Osprey Publications, Oxford, 2003.

Lamborn Wilson, Peter. Pirate Utopias. Moorish Corsairs and European Renegadoes. Autonmedia, New York, 1995.

Murray, Peter. Maritime Paintings of Cork. Crawford Art Gallery, Cork, 2005.

McCarthy, Bernie. Pirates of Baltimore. From the Middle Ages to the Seventeenth Century. Baltimore Castle Publications, Cork, 2012.

MacLoughlin, Jim. A Social and Cultural History of Ireland’s sea fisheries. Four Courts Press, Dublin, 2010.

MacLysaght, Edward. Irish Life in the Seventeenth Century. Irish Academic Press, Dublin, 1979.

Monday 24 February 14 O’Flanagan, Patrick et alia. Cork History and Society. Geography Publications, Dublin, 1993.

O’Shea, Joe. An Account of Murder, Mutiny and Mayhem Concerning the affairs of the Blackest-Hearted villains From Irish History. The O’Brien Press, Dublin, 2012.

O’Sullivan, William. THe Economic History of Cork City from the Earliest Times to the Act of Union. Cork University Press, Cork, 1937. [ Digest of Calendars of State Papers entries etc].

Parker, Matthew. The Sugar Barons. Family, Corruption, Empire and War. Hutchinson, London, 2011.

Porter Alexander, Edward. The Journal of John Fontaine. An Irish Huguenot Son in Spain and Virginia. University Press Virginia, Virginia, 1972.

Ronald, Susan. The Pirate Queen. Queen Elizabeth Ist, Her Pirate Adventurers, and the Dawn of Empire. Harper, New York, 2008.

Smith, Charles. THe Ancient and Present State of the County and City of Cork. Cork, 1815. [original edition 1750].

Monday 24 February 14 Rynne, Colin. The Archaeology of Cork city and Harbour from the Earliest Times to Industralisation. Collins Press, Cork, 1993.

Truxes, M. Irish-American Trade 1660-1783. Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 2004.

Walvin, James. The Slave Trade. Thames and Hudson, London, 2011.

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Lindsey, Rev. John. Map of Harbour 1759. Notre Dame University Library, Special Collection Dept, Thomas McGrath Map Collection of historical Irish maps.

For facsimile images of early books see online subscription databases ECCO (Eighteenth Century Collections Online) and EEBO (Early English Books Online).

Excellent Royalty Free images available online to view at StockfreeImages website.

Monday 24 February 14