FOYNES woman Mary Spring Rice was a prominent member of the crew of the Asgard that famously landed 900 rifles and ammunition at Howth harbour in the summer of 1914.
This Sunday at 2pm the crucial role played by Mary and other Limerick people in the importation of arms for the Irish Volunteers will be marked with the unveiling of a commemorative plaque at Mount Trenchard Churchyard in Loughill – the County Limerick gun-runner’s last resting place.
Conor O’Brien of Foynes Island, who later made the first circumnavigation of the globe in the Saoirse, flying the flag of the newly independent Irish Free State, is also buried at Loughill. He was the owner and skipper of the Kelpie in 1914 and along with his sister Kitty and Foynes sailors George Cahill and Tom Fitzsimons they conveyed a second consignment of arms from Germany to St Tudwall’s Island, off the Welsh coast.
The 600 rifles and 10,000 rounds of ammunition were transferred from there to the Chotah, owned and skippered by Limerick-born Sir Thomas Myles, then President of the Royal College of Surgeons, and were landed at Kilcoole, County Wicklow on August 1, 1914. A total of 15,000 rifles and 45,000 rounds of ammunition were landed in 1914.
To honour these Irish nationalist activists, a commemorative booklet is being published by the Mount Trenchard Memorial Committee. The memorial plaque, to be unveiled this weekend, has been sculpted by Cliodhna Cussen.
A shuttle bus will run this Sunday between the churches at Foynes and Loughill to the Mount Trenchard churchyard.
