Tommy confident that relic from 1914 shipwreck is in sight

When Claddagh native Tommy Holohan was growing up on Galway Bay, he remembered how neighbours used to have contests to swim out to the wreck of a ship off Mutton island.

Now he believes he may have located the anchor of the same ship, named Nordlyset, in the sands off Nimmo’s pier.

“We’re not sure, but the anchor chain is here and close to part of the keel, so there’s every reason to think the actual anchor is a couple of foot below, “Holohan says.

“If it can be located, and then raised, it should be exhibited as a key part of Galway’s maritime history,” he feels.

The Nordlyset, or Northern lights, was a three-masted 1,600-ton steel sailing barque which was built in Greenock, Scotland, in 1891.

It was carrying a cargo of timber deal from Rimouski, Canada, into Galway when it hit rocks off Mutton island in November 1914.

No members of the crew perished, but much of its cargo was either washed ashore or was salvaged, Holohan says.

“They got her off the rocks and towed her in, and the hull was sitting upright and we could see it for several years” he explains.

“The Claddagh men had contests to swim out to her,” he recalls.

“Then Hammond Lane Metal Company was sent to take what was of value from it and stripped it down,” Holohan says.

“It was a beautiful ship, and a ship that sailed the oceans. It was fitted with the most modern technology they had at the time.

“Galway had been setting its sights on becoming a major transatlantic port and, of course it was one of several ships to run aground in the Bay – but perhaps one of the better-remembered by people who are still alive,” Holohan says.

“All that was left after Hammond Lane finished was the keel, and we think the anchor has to be here. “I think if the proper buoys were used,  it might help to lift the keel and that would point to the anchor,” he believes.

The wreck was also close to South Park, known as the ‘Swamp;, which was the Galway dump until the late 1950s, he points out.

“When we were growing up on the Claddagh, we had no toys, so we would be back looking for toys in the dump, or food. When my mother was young, she and her sisters were sent down to the dump for cinders for the fire,” he says.

Holohan is a grandson of Nan Toole, who was known for her medicinal cures in the Claddagh. She delivered him as a home birth in 1951 and died a year later in 1952.

A keen athlete, Holohan holds the world record for the number of times an Irish person has run the New York marathon consecutively, and has also run marathons in Dublin, Boston, Edinburgh and the Mojave desert.

He is a founder member of the Anti-Austerity Alliance and stood for the alliance in the local elections in 2014, and in the 2016 general election. Apart from politics and running, he also maintains a keen interest in local history.