Patrick Howarth
Ballycotton is a small town in County Cork, Ireland. In 1936 it was the scene of one of the most daring rescues in the history of the Lifeboat Institution, a service which does not exactly want for a roll of honour.
In the first days of February 1936 there was calm weather and a grey frost. Then the wind began to blow from the southeast, the quarter which is most feared in Ballycotton. For five days the gales continued, and at times they rose to hurricane force. By Sunday, February 9, the gales had already been blowing for two days, and on that day and the next the coxswain of the lifeboat, fearing she might be driven against the breakwater, ran ropes to her to protect her.
The coxswain of the Ballycotton lifeboat at that time was Patrick Sliney. Every regular member of the crew was named either Sliney or Walsh, and Tom Sliney, the coxswain’s brother, was the mechanic. Patrick Sliney was a fisherman, and the living of himself and his family depended on his boat. Shortly before midnight on Monday, February 10, his boat parted her moorings, and it seemed that she must be swept out to sea. At that time it was hardly safe even to walk through the streets of Ballycotton. Slates were flying from roofs and people trying to walk were literally spun round by gusts of wind. Down in the harbour the sea was tearing great stones out of the breakwater and hurling them about like pebbles, but all that night Coxswain Sliney and some of the other fishermen had been trying to secure their boats. About seven o’clock in the morning they succeeded in securing the coxswain’s boat. Patrick Sliney had hurt his hand, but he did not consider the injury serious.
The honorary secretary of the lifeboat station was, and still is, Robert Mahony, the postmaster. His occupation is an exacting one, for there is no automatic telephone exchange in Ballycotton, and in the middle of the night he has to go downstairs and answer the telephone when it rings. He is also postman as well as postmaster, and delivers letters himself.
Mr Mahony spent most of the night of the 10th near the harbour expecting trouble, but it was not until eight o’clock in the morning, when he was at home, that a message reached him. The telephone lines linking Ballycotton with the outside world had been blown down, and the messenger had come twelve miles by car. The message was that the Daunt Rock lightship, with eight men on board, had broken from her moorings and was drifting in the direction of Ballycotton.
Mr Mahony passed on the message to Coxswain Sliney. He did not give him any orders, for he did not believe it would be possible to take the lifeboat out of the harbour.
No maroons were fired on that occasion. Coxswain Sliney did not want to alarm the people of Ballycotton, for he had already seen the look on his daughter’s face when, in helping him on with his boots, she had guessed where he was going. Word was passed round quietly, and the crew assembled in the harbour.
After taking the lifeboat a mile out to sea, Coxswain Sliney made a decision which appalled those onlookers who knew the local waters. This was to take the lifeboat through a sound between two islands. By doing so he saved half a mile, and he had no means of knowing how immediate the danger of the men on board the lightship was. The seas in the sound were even worse than in the open, and after coming off the top of one sea the lifeboat fell into the trough of the next with such a thud that everyone on board believed the engines had gone through the bottom of the boat. But Tom Sliney reported to his brother that all was well; the whole crew gathered in the after cockpit, and when each sea passed over the bow Patrick Sliney carefully counted his men.
After passing through the sound the coxswain ran before the wind along the coast. Some six miles from Ballycotton the seas became even worse than before, and Coxswain Sliney decided he must put out the canvas drogue to steady the boat. To do this he eased the engines; immediately several seas struck him on the side of the head and he was half stunned. Then, as the drogue was being put out, a heavy, curling sea came over the port quarter, filled the cockpit, and knocked down every man on board. When they recovered they found that the drogue ropes had fouled, but the drogue was drawing.
The rain which had been falling turned to sleet; thick spray reduced visibility even further; and the lifeboat crew could see no sign of the lightship. The coxswain decided he must make for the lightship’s usual position in the hope of finding her on the way. He went on for seven miles but saw no sign of her, and in those conditions he could not be sure of his position. He came to the conclusion that he must make for Cobh, in the hope of getting some correct information. The oil-sprays were used to calm the breakers a little, and about eleven o’clock in the morning the lifeboat reached the harbour. The position of the lightship was known there, and after trying, without success, to telephone Mr Mahony at Ballycotton, Coxswain Sliney ordered the lifeboat out again.
It was just after midday when the lifeboat found the lightship. The lightship had an anchor down and was a quarter of a mile south-west of the Daunt Rock and half a mile from the shore. Two vessels were standing by her. One was H.M. destroyer Tenedos, the other the S.S. Innisfallen. When the lifeboat arrived the steamer left.
The crew of the lightship were determined not to leave her. The lightship was some distance from her correct position and for that reason was a constant danger to navigation. But her crew could not be certain that her anchor would hold, and they asked the lifeboat to stand by. Coxswain Sliney agreed at once to do so.
For some three hours the lifeboat steamed and drifted, pitched and rolled in seas which were too bad to allow her to anchor. Then the gale eased a little for a time, and the destroyer tried to float a grass line to the lightship with a buoy attached in the hope of getting a wire cable to the lightship and taking her in tow. The lifeboat picked up the buoy and passed it to the lightship, but then the line parted. For two hours, during which they were continually swept by heavy seas, the destroyer and the lifeboat tried to effect a connexion with the lightship which would allow her to be towed away, but all their efforts failed. Darkness fell; it was impossible to approach the lightship; and as the destroyer intended to stand by all night, the lifeboat returned to Cobh. There more lines could be taken on board and the crew would be able to have their first food that day. It was half-past nine at night by the time they reached the harbour.
Some of the crew had a little sleep, but three men remained on board all the time. Then, early on the morning of Wednesday, February 12, the lifeboat put out again. When she reached the lightship the destroyer left, for the Isolda, a vessel belonging to the Commissioners of Irish Lights, was expected from Dublin. During the day the wind dropped a little; there was fog in place of the rain and sleet, but the sea did not seem to go down at all. All that day the lifeboat remained near at hand, only leaving the lightship from time to time to warn other vessels that the lightship was out of position and that they themselves would be in serious danger if they did not alter course. The weather forecast in the evening offered no hope of an improvement in the weather, and the lightship asked the lifeboat to stand by all night. Coxswain Sliney suggested that the time had come to take off the lightship’s crew, but the captain would not agree. With the gale blowing even more strongly from the south-east the Ballycotton lifeboat stood by all that night.
When daylight came the lifeboat, which had been continuously at sea for the last twenty-four hours, had little petrol left, and it was clear that she must once more return to Cobh. She reached the harbour at nine o’clock. The last twenty-five and a half hours had been spent at sea without food; Coxswain Sliney’s hand was causing him considerable pain; his son, William Sliney, the youngest member of the crew, who is today the lifeboat mechanic, suffered from seasickness throughout the service; the sea had caused salt-water burns; and the effects of the cold were terrible. Every man had only one immediate wish, which was for tea, and they would not even wait for it to be made in a pot. They insisted on having the tea made in their cups and drank it as it scalded their throats.
It was not until four o’clock in the afternoon that the lifeboat was able to put out again, with the prospect of having to stand by through yet another night of gales. This time the lifeboat reached the lightship at dusk. The Isolda had already arrived, and her captain told Coxswain Sliney that he intended to stand by all night and then try to take the lightship in tow. He had not realized what the consequences would be of a sudden change in the direction of the wind and a worsening of both sea and weather.
About eight o’clock a huge sea swept over the lightship and carried away the forward of the two red lights which had been hoisted to show that she was out of position. The wind, which had been blowing steadily from the south-east, shifted to south-south-east, and the lightship drifted farther towards the Daunt Rock. About half-past nine Coxswain Sliney took the lifeboat round the lightship’s stern and had his searchlight played on her. The lightship was now only sixty yards from the rock, and if the wind shifted farther to the west she would certainly strike it. The coxswain told the captain of the Isolda of the dangers of the lightship’s position, but the captain replied that he could do nothing. Finally he agreed that the coxswain should try to take the lightship’s crew off.
Seas were now sweeping right over the lightship. She was plunging on her cable, rolling from thirty to forty degrees and burying her starboard bow in the water. She was fitted with rolling chocks, which projected more than two feet from her sides, and as she rolled these threshed the water. Because of the lightship’s cable it was impossible for the lifeboat to anchor to windward and veer down on her, and Coxswain Sliney realized he could do nothing but approach her from astern and make quick runs in on her port side, each of which would give some of the crew a moment in which to jump into the lifeboat. The lightship was only 98 feet long, and if the 51-foot lifeboat, coming in at full speed, ran too far, she would go over the cable and capsize. Every time she came alongside, the lightship, with her chocks threshing the water as she plunged and rolled, might easily crash on top of the lifeboat. All these dangers were clear to Coxswain Sliney as he made his plan.
He first went ahead of the lightship and pumped oil, but it had little effect in calming the seas. Then he went astern and drove at full speed alongside. One man jumped successfully, and the lifeboat went astern. The second time she went in nobody jumped, and again she went astern. The third time five men jumped, leaving two men aboard. Then came the fourth attempt. This time the lightship sheered violently and her counter crashed on top of the lifeboat, smashing the rails and damaging the fender and deck. Nobody was hurt, but the man working the searchlight sprang clear at the last second. The lifeboat then went in a fifth time, and nobody jumped.
The lifeboat’s crew now saw what was happening. The two remaining men were clinging to the rails and seemed unable to jump. Coxswain Sliney therefore had to expose some of his crew to a new danger. He sent them forward, where they might easily be swept overboard, with orders to seize the two men as the lifeboat came alongside. The orders were carried out; and the two men were seized and dragged into the lifeboat. The face of one and the legs of the other were hurt, but Tom Sliney, the mechanic, was able to give them first aid.
The lifeboat left the lightship, but the dangers to the crew were not over. One of the lightship’s crew, overcome by the effects of the strain he had undergone, became hysterical. He wanted to jump overboard, and two men, themselves exhausted, had to hold him down by force. It was eleven o’clock on the night of Thursday, February 13, when the lifeboat put into Cobh harbour for the last time.
That night the crew had their first full night’s sleep since the Saturday of the week before. The next day the lifeboat returned to Ballycotton in weather which had suddenly improved. She had been away from her station for seventy-six and a half hours, on service for sixty-three hours and at sea for forty-nine hours. Towards the end of the forty-nine hours Coxswain Sliney had had to carry out a feat of seamanship of the highest order and demand of his crew a response which even to men who were fresh and in good physical condition would have been exceptionally exacting. The service in which Patrick Sliney won his gold medal, his brother and the second coxswain, John Walsh, won the silver medal, and his son and two other Slineys, John and William, as well as Thomas Walsh, won the bronze medal, has had few equals and perhaps no superior in the history of the Lifeboat Institution.