Visitors and locals enjoying the scenery at the beautiful Beale Beach, Co. Kerry, may be forgiven for overlooking a peculiar structure embedded into the sand. This structure, visible at low tide, is in fact the wreck of a 19th-century ship – the Thetis – a vessel whose story is both a compelling mystery and an allegory of Irish society in the years before the famine.
Originally from Dublin, engineer and sailor Paul O’Dowd has been living on the North Kerry coast with his wife Anne for forty years. His quest to uncover what happened to the Thetis germinated on one of his many walks along the Beach, something he recounts in the introduction to his book Final Voyage of the Thetis, launched this October in Kerry Writers’ Museum, Listowel.
Inspired by the almost ghostly atmosphere pervading the wreck, Paul undertook to investigate the fate of the Thetis, a task for which his engineering and sailing expertise proved invaluable. Owned by Limerick landlord and businessman Francis Spaight, of ‘Spaights of Limerick’ fame, the ship’s primary purpose was to transport timber from Quebec back to Ireland. It also operated as a passenger vessel, carrying thousands of Irish emigrants to the New World. These passengers endured crowded, unsanitary conditions with limited access to food and water for at least six weeks – experiences O’Dowd vividly describes in the pages of his book.
Despite the hardships faced by those aboard, Ireland in the years before the Great Famine benefited from the remarkable scientific advancements of the late Georgian period. In Final Voyage-, O’Dowd details the various navigational devices and tools used by captains to cross the Atlantic in sailing ships.
At the heart of Final Voyage- lies a mystery: how could a brig that survived the treacherous, ice-laden waters of the St. Lawrence River meet its end in the comparatively calmer waters of the Shannon Estuary? According to some official records, some crew members perished on that fateful night, yet these deaths are not corroborated elsewhere. Rumours also suggest that the ship was carrying tobacco as contraband, which may have played a role in its eventual demise. Is it plausible that Francis Spaight, the ship’s owner and a prominent figure among the landed elite, was unaware of the contraband and bore no responsibility for what happened to the ship? The author grapples with this and other questions as he carefully weighs up various theories, drawing a conclusion that places the Thetis within the broader social and historical context of the period.
Paul O’Dowd still regularly walks along Beale Beach, catching the melancholy sight of the wreckage every time the tide is low. Now and then, he is haunted by voices from the past, urging him to tell their story. With Final Voyage of the Thetis readers are drawn closer to the truth of what happened on that faithful November’s night, 1834.
Final Voyage of the Thetis is currently available in local bookshops in Kerry and online at buythebook.ie.
Pictured: Paul O’Dowd signing books and surrounded by an impressive crowd, at the launch of his book, ‘Final Voyage of the Thetis’