MarEx Mailbag:
This week’s Mailbag contains but one letter, but it is one sent in “fun,” referencing our May 21st light synopsis of MarEx Editor Joe Keefe’s Ireland holiday.
Even the Geneva Convention allows for vacation time (so they tell me). A week in Ireland served to recharge my batteries for the exciting summer of work sure to come. Our reader recounted his excellent experiences in Ireland, too. You can read our 14 May editorial, entitled “On a Slow Bell: Off the Clock but Still Plugged In” by clicking HERE. Or, you can read the letter from our reader as shown below:
Joe
Enjoyed reading about your Ireland vacation.
I made a marvelous and unlikely voyage to Dublin in 1947 as Third Mate of the JOSEPH CANNON, an American-Hawaiian Liberty.
The coal miners in Wales were on strike. We loaded coal in Portland, Oregon and delivered it to Dublin. Talk about "coals to Newcastle"!
We stopped for bunkers in Los Angeles. We did not have an Irish flag to fly as courtesy on arrival, so the Old Man sent me off to a ship chandler to buy one. I was in luck; they only had one in stock. I bought it and stowed it on the bridge.
We arrived in Dublin early on a misty morning. I hoisted the Irish flag at the fore. It was truly magnificent although a bit large, eight by twelve to be exact. It was a beautiful emerald green with a huge golden harp.
The pilot, an old timer, boarded. When I met him as he reached the deck, he gestured at the flag and asked. "Phwat in God's name are you flying at the foremast?” I replied proudly, "The Irish flag, sir."
The pilot just shook his head and replied, "That's not the Irish flag, son, that's what we fly at festivals."
It had taken only a few hours to load that coal, but it took a week to off load it. This suited my plans to a “T.” I was 21 and anxious to absorb the history and culture of Ireland. NOT!
The coal was shoveled into rope mats and lifted out of the hold one at a time. This was no doubt the way it was done in the time of Brian Boru. One day, the coal dust was so thick you couldn't see the men working in the hold. One if them asked if I could ease the situation by spraying the air with water. That sounded like the humane thing to do and I used a fire hose on the fog nozzle setting. It really cleared the air except for the foreman who charged up to me enraged, "What the hell are you doing?" he shouted. "They're being paid dirty money. Now they'll be demanding wet money too!"
My ancestor, Ellen Driscoll, also came from Cork; Skibereen to be exact.
They, too, were originally “O'Driscolls.”
The "O” was gone by the time they reached Boston in 1820. Genealogy is my hobby. I learned that the O'Driscolls were once the ‘Capos de Capos’ of the of the southern Irish coast mafia.
In a word, they were notorious pirates.
I have to be careful about what I say about the Somali situation!
Bill Lyons
MarEx Editor’s Remarks: The Dublin that I saw a couple of weeks ago bore no resemblance to the one I saw in 1977. Perhaps I was hanging out in different neighborhoods back then. Mr. Lyons says that he arrived on a misty morning. From where I sit, that statement is redundant. He writes in from time to time. Thanks for reading and writing, Bill. Good letter. PS: Bill says he left out a couple of details from that first visit. Okay, so did I.