Lusitania davit finds way back to Cork
It was one of his final wishes — that the remarkable Lusitania artefact he recovered from the seabed almost half a century ago would find its way home.
And while he did not live to see it happen, members of Gerry Doyle’s family will travel from Co Down for the unveiling on the Old Head of Kinsale of the Lusitania lifeboat crane, or davit, he trawled from the seabed near the wreck in 1965.
The ceremony will mark the end of a remarkable story but will also highlight the cross-border links and friendships which have been forged thanks to Mr Doyle and the artefact, said a spokesperson for the Old Head Signal Tower and Lusitania Museum project.
The luxurious Cunard liner, the Lusitania, was steaming from New York to Liverpool on May 7, 1915, when it was struck by a torpedo fired from a German U-boat off the Cork coast. It sank some 18km off the Old Head of Kinsale, with the loss of some 1,200 lives.
There were 16 lifeboats on the doomed vessel, each supported by two steel cranes, or davits, used to hoist or lower the lifeboats.
Mr Doyle was fishing on his trawler, Croí an Dúin, close to the wreck site in 1965, when his nets snagged one of the Lusitania’s 32 davits. The surprise catch damaged his fishing gear and he returned to Kinsale.
However, because there was no equipment there to remove the davit from his vessel, Mr Doyle and his crew returned home to Kilkeel with it on board.
He loaned the davit to his local district council in the mid-1980s and it was installed at the Annalong Marine Park in Co Down, where it has stood since without any interpretive plaque.
The US-based owner of the Lusitania wreck, Gregg Bemis, approached Mr Doyle who agreed that it should be returned to Cork where a committee had established a Lusitania memorial garden on the Old Head of Kinsale, and where they plan to develop a Lusitania museum.
Last year, Mr Doyle wrote to Newry, Mourne, and Down District Council outlining his wishes for the davit. He passed away just before Christmas.
In June, the Co Down council formally transferred the davit to representatives of the Old Head Signal Tower, Memorial Garden, and Museum committee and it began its journey back to Cork.
Michael O’Hare, a teenage crewman on Mr Doyle’s trawler that day in 1965, said the historical significance of the catch did not register with him at the time, and that because of the lack of interpretive information, its significance did not register with the people of Annalong either.
“I would say the majority of people in Annalong have absolutely no idea. It is just a piece of scrap metal, stuck in the park there,” he told the BBC earlier this year.
“It was lying on the seabed for 50 years when we picked it up and it is nice to know that 52 years later it is going back to Kinsale. In a way it is the closing of a circle.”
“Gerry, unfortunately, hasn’t lived to see his wishes coming true but his wife and family will be happy to see this and so am I.”
Meanwhile, the Old Head lighthouse will open to the public from 10am to 5pm this Saturday and Sunday. Visitors can buy tickets at the Signal Tower from where they will be shuttled by bus to the lighthouse.
