Mayo Memories: Missing 'Ballina' steamer located after 80 years
By Tom Gillespie
IN January 1968 The Connaught Telegraph reported the Ballina link with a missing ship.
For over 80 years the exact location of the wreck of the S.S. ‘Ballina’, a Liverpool-registered coaster, remained a mystery.
On January 5, 1882, the ship left Liverpool for Larne and Ballina. It was named after the Mayo port town.
It never reached its destination and on February 1 was posted as a missing ship by Lloyd’s, with no knowledge of her fate.
Recently, the newspaper said, the wreck was found in unusual circumstances.
Trawlers were frequently damaged and lost their nets on a sea bottom obstruction about seven miles south-east of Laxey, Isle of Man. Expert diver Michael Corlett and his brother, John, investigated. They recovered the ship’s bell bearing the name ‘Ballina’.
Now (1968) Ballina Harbour Commissioners are going to ask that the bell be given to the town.
Three Ballina sailors - Pat Carney, Stephen Walsh and Jack Hannigan - were lost with the rest of the crew when the ship sank.
It was said that the vessel was too heavily laden with coal when leaving Liverpool.
No insurance was paid by the underwriters because at the enquiry that followed her loss the pier-headman swore that she was three inches below her plimsoll line going out of the dock.
The ‘Ballina’, a steamer with auxiliary sails, was reputed to be one of the fastest ships of its size at the time.
It was owned by Mr. G.T. Pollexfen, Brunswick Street, Liverpool, was built in 1878 and was 341 tons gross.
The skipper was a Captain Lynn, whose brother was a Presbyterian Minister at Mullaferry, Killala.
Regularly, each week, the ‘Ballina’ steamed up the Moy estuary into Ballina, generally arriving on a Wednesday, and local merchants availed of it to cross to Liverpool to make purchases.
On December 17, 1881, it left the port for the last time to go to its doom.
On board as it left Ballina was pilot Pat Walsh. The sea was so rough at Enniscrone that the pilot boat was unable to go out to take the pilot ashore, so the ‘Ballina’ proceeded to carry him to Liverpool.
After a bad night at sea, Pilot Walsh reported to the captain that the vessel must be taking water.
“What matter about that?” said Captain Lynn. “I’ll never get a wooden jacket (coffin) anyhow.”
The captain and the crew wanted Pilot Walsh to wait over for the Christmas activities in Liverpool and return on the ‘Ballina’ a week later.
But Pilot Wash, anxious to get home, crossed to Dublin and travelled overland to Ballina.
The fate of the ship is still (1968) recalled by residents at the Quay, Ballina.
A poem specially composed about the sinking was often recited by 91-year-old Mrs. Anne Melvin, who died in 1964. It was recorded for posterity by Quay resident Mr. Paddy Joe Lacken.
The story is told, too, that a Mr. Owen Crowley, who worked at Ballina Quay, was passing through the woods on the night the vessel was lost, and he is supposed to have seen the ghost of the vessel making its way up the Moy towards Ballina.