The boat that reared Galway for a century

By Suhasini Srinivasaragavan

The Claddagh moors several boats, old and new, of several kinds. One may glance over them, seeing nothing special. However, underneath the shiny new coating of a particular black sailing boat lies a piece of history, a century old.

‘Loveen’ was not known by this name when she was built as a 22-foot row boat in 1925 at the Spanish Arch in Claddagh.

In fact, she did not have a name, for her kind was common in town, owned by several families who relied on boats like her for manual labour and transportation. It would only be a century later that this old battered boat was restored to more than its former glory by the Galway Hooker Sailing Club. Now ‘Loveen’ is an ambassador for the hooker sails, teaching young volunteers both the art of sailing and of the intertwined history of boats and the lives of people in Galway.

Mary Cunningham starts sailing

Many live in Galway ignorant of the impact boats had on their lives. Mary Cunningham was one of them. 

It was around 20 years ago that Cunningham first went sailing on a whim. She was in Connemara, in the pleasant July weather, when she was approached with the idea. “Somebody said there was a man who owned a hooker boat and that he would take people out.”

Mary felt the idea was interesting, so she quickly went home, brought her children and got on the boat. “It was an absolutely beautiful day. I was just so taken with the boat moving along the sounds of nature and no motors!” Mary, now 64, recollects the day with sharp clarity and fondness.

Decades would pass before Cunningham was reintroduced to the world of sailing. She joined the Galway Hooker Sailing club during the thick of the pandemic as the club members were trying to restore Loveen.

Taken in by decades worth of history beneath each old rotting piece of timber on the boat, she decided to document its story on a podcast titled ‘Loving Old Boats’. There, Cunningham invited members from the club who were skilled in boatbuilding to share their knowledge.

During the first 50 years since 1925, “(the boat) was used as a row boat…with two or three people rowing it,” Cóilín Hernon, a master boatbuilder explains on Cunningham’s Podcast. The rowboat might have “probably carried seaweed or turf”, he says. 

The history of Loveen

In 1987, this common rowboat was sold to a man who named it after his two daughters, ‘Sorcha Mairéad’. This would be the first time the boat was given an identity. The owner made alterations by removing the motor and adding a gaff rig or a four-cornered sail to the boat.

With the alterations, Sorcha Mairéad became a boat indigenous to Galway, a ‘Gleoiteog’ hooker sail. The next few decades were full of leisure for Sorcha Mairead, for it was taken out for not much more than fishing and regattas or boat racing around Galway. 

It was not until 2009 that Loveen got ‘her’ name. Loveen, or ‘little love’ is an affectionate term commonly used in Claddagh to denote people close to oneself endearingly. Nicholas ‘Nicky’ Dolan of Galway purchased Sorcha Mairead and named the boat ‘Loveen’ as a joke.

Ciaran Oliver, the commodore of the Galway Hooker Sailing Club, explains that Dolan wasn’t married, and said that he would call the boat Loveen, for the wife he never had. His mother “was mortified at the idea”, adds Cunningham. 

A few years later, in 2011, Dolan, who was 46, passed away, and Loveen’s name remained in his memory. In 2012, his mother, Molly Dolan, donated Loveen to the Galway Sea Scouts, who utilised her to introduce new people to sailing. 

The rowboat-turned-hooker sail made its way back to the Spanish Arch, where it was built almost a century ago.

Loveen gets restored

However, as Loveen had been in service for close to 100 years, she needed restoration to remain functional, and she was picked up by the Galway Hooker Sailing club in 2019, who managed to raise enough funds for the restoration project.

All the natural materials used to build Loveen were rotting and had to “be carefully replaced, without damaging the boat’s shape”, explains Mary. She adds that although a lot of Loveen’s body was replaced, her “spirit” remains. 

Now, at the age of 98, Loveen is close to celebrating her 2nd year since restoration, and even though she is a century old, you might still catch her on the Claddagh reuniting people like Mary to the waters of Ireland.