RORY O’ MORE
Have another drink, boys. Well, have one with me.
We’re home from the sea. Yes, we’re back on the shore;
And if you get too drunk, boys, in this company,
You’ll roar’ round Cape Horn on the Rory O’ More.
Chorus of the Liverpool drinking song Dublin O’ Shea.
The Rory O’More was a 295 ton barque, built in Kirkcudbright in 1842 for Moore and Co. of Liverpool. She was named after a celebrated seventeenth century Irish rebel leader, and was one of two barques built in Kirkcudbright, the other being the John Tomkinson, built in 1840. A barque is a sailing vessel with either three or four masts, square rigged on each mast except the mizzen. Rory O’ More and John Tomkinson were both three masted barques and Rory O’ More is the largest vessel known to have been built in Kirkcudbright.
The writing of this article was prompted by the discovery, in the course of other research, of a fine oil painting of Rory O’ More in the National Maritime Museum at Greenwich. Apart from a very small pencil sketch of the Prince of Denmark, built in Kirkcudbright in 1789, the painting referred to is the only detailed image of any of the 62 vessels known to have been built in Kirkcudbright between 1789 and 1858. It is therefore unique evidence of the scale and quality of the shipbuilding undertaken at Kirkcudbright, contradicting the assumption of many people that all locally built vessels were modest coasters engaged in the humble trade of carrying coals and agricultural produce.
Captain Andrew McMaster of Stranraer took command of Rory O’ More in Liverpool in 1842 and made a voyage to Barbados followed by several voyages to Quebec carrying general cargo and passengers. He encountered ice off the Magdalene Islands in the Gulf of St. Lawrence, by which the Rory O’ More was damaged, causing the pumps to have to be manned continuously for two days. When leaving Montreal in the summer of 1846, the river was found to be so shallow that the yards and topmasts had to be sent down and floated alongside, while cables, chains and other rigging were put into lighters to enable the vessel to traverse Lake St. Peter, with her draft reduced to only nine feet of water. The following year Captain McMaster, again bound for Quebec, ran ashore in dense fog near Métis on the lower St. Lawrence River causing damage that forced him to abandon the vessel. After the cargo had been salvaged Rory O’ More was surveyed, condemned, declared a wreck and sold for £600.
Kirkcudbright ships were reputed to be more heavily built than their Canadian counterparts, and her new owners succeeded in salvaging her, refloating her, and bringing her to harbour in Quebec under sail after the tug that was towing her broke down. She is next heard of being loaded for a voyage to California in pursuit of gold, carrying a large number of passengers in addition to freight such as provisions, tents, frames for wooden houses, mining tools, etc.. She sailed on 13th November 1849 under the command of Captain McNab, rounding Cape Horn and arriving safely at San Francisco after a passage of 159 days.
Between 1850 and 1852 Rory O’ More made several voyages between San Francisco and Van Diemen’s Land (now Tasmania), calling at Tahiti, Pitcairn Island, Sydney, Newcastle (New South Wales), under the command of Captains Brennan, Smart and Gardner. In 1853, she sailed from Sydney for Calcutta on the first of two or three such voyages commanded by Captain Joseph J. Church. On one of these voyages, Captain Church gave a very detailed account of the sighting of a waterspout, and accompanied it by his own sketch of the incident. Crew lists from this period give the names of 12 crewmen and 21 passengers. Of the 12 cabin passengers, six were children, and of the 9 passengers in steerage, one was a child accompanied by her father.
In 1855 Rory O’ More was in London but she soon returned to Australia from where she made frequent voyages between Sydney, Hong Kong, Perth, Singapore and Fremantle. She was sold to Singapore owners in 1863 and the last reference to her that I have found is her sighting by the Glasgow ship Bothwell Castle on 6th January 1866, while on passage from Foochow to Boston.
By a strange coincidence, three of the vessels mentioned in this article, the schooner Prince of Denmark, the barque Rory O’ More and the barque John Tomkinson, were in Tasmanian waters at various times between 1846 and 1856. In addition to the fact that they were all built in Kirkcudbright, they shared extremely good reputations as outstandingly fast vessels. It is gratifying to have finally produced evidence in the form of a fine oil painting confirming that Kirkcudbright’s craftsmen in the mid nineteenth century were building fine, fast and elegant vessels capable of distinguishing themselves in distant and dangerous waters.
Success in finding the painting inspires me to seek further information, so if anyone has in their loft a logbook, a painting or further details of any of the vessels or captains mentioned, I hope they will contact the Galloway News.
“Now Rory leave off sir you’ll hug me no more
That’s eight times today and you’ve kissed me before”
“Then here goes another,” says he, ” to make sure
For there’s luck in odd numbers.” says Rory O’ More.
From Rory O’ More by Samuel Lover (1797-1868)
(copyright David R Collin)
(first appeared in Galloway News 2010)
A query to the State Library of Western Australia resulted in the following response. Unfortunately, the State Library of Western Australia does not have a copy of the log book for the Rory O’More. There is a document titled “Ships registered in Western Australia from 1856 to 1969”, which was made available online by the Maritime Heritage Association , that has an entry on page 16 that briefly reports the sale of the barque from John Thomas to William Spottiswood. In this entry it mentions that the log book for the Rory O’More survived and has been transcribed. However, it does not provide information as to where the log book is held.
On further exploration, the Royal Western Australian Historical Society has a catalogue entry for the Rory O’More log book. According to this record, it appears that this item is part of their collection known as Private Papers 9. For further information regarding this log book please contact the Society. Although The State Library does not have the specific document you were searching for, we still have materials that may be of interest to you. We hold an archive collection of one time Rory O’More owner John Thomas. In this collection there are photocopies of manuscripts that include the 1858 manifest of the barque, shipping lists for her several voyages undertaken in 1858 and a list of required medicines. A full list of items in this collection is available to view by clicking the link on the catalogue record. Another item of interest held here at The Library is a biography of Captain John Thomas written by Rod Dickson. In Part 14 of this publication, starting on page 36, there are transcribed excerpts from the log book dated between the 3rd May 1858 through to the 10th April 1860 on page 51. There are also transcripts of correspondence between Captain Thomas and the Rory O’More’s commanding officer Captain Harding, appointed in 1860, that describe various journeys and incidents. Details of these letters can be found on and between pages 51 and 58. If you interested in viewing any of the pages from the Captain John Thomas biography or from the archive manuscripts, held here at The Library, we offer a copying service. This Document Delivery Service enables you to request particular items or pages from books to be copied and distributed to you. To utilise this, please fill out the order form by selecting the “Journal article / book chapter” box and enter the title, “Title of Article / Chapter”, volume #, year/date and pages. Click the ‘Add item/s’ button and then the ‘Checkout’ button. Fill in the next page with your details, tick the box to agree to the terms and conditions and ‘Send Order’. There is a charge for this service. I hope that this information has been of assistance. Regards James Librarian : Client Services. |