Irish Navy during WW2

Dummy

Was having a chat with a friend over weekend about Ireland during World War 2 and we got onto the topic of the Irish Navy during this time. Have just been reading up on it on the web and discovered that:

1. Ireland had 6 Torpedo Boats.

But more interestingly:

2. Also had a gun boat called the Murichu. It had been purchased from the British Navy and had formally been known as The Helga, used by the British to shell central Dublin during Easter Week 1916.
It was sunk (or it sank) en route to the scrap yard in 1946.

Judgement Day

Lucky we weren't invaded so.

Dummy

Just found this interesting site, that has a fantastic photo history of the Naval Service.

http://homepage.eircom.net/~navalass12/ships.htm

There is a photo of the Murichu (The Helga) there too.

PatsytheNazi

Dummy wrote: »

Was having a chat with a friend over weekend about Ireland during World War 2 and we got onto the topic of the Irish Navy during this time. Have just been reading up on it on the web and discovered that:

1. Ireland had 6 Torpedo Boats.

But more interestingly:

2. Also had a gun boat called the Murichu. It had been purchased from the British Navy and had formally been known as The Helga, used by the British to shell central Dublin during Easter Week 1916.
It was sunk (or it sank) en route to the scrap yard in 1946.

Watching a programme about the Luftwaffe bombing of Belfast in WW2, appearently NI had only 2 Spitfires to 'protect' it.

Dummy

A number of people over the years, spoke about this. Apparently, they had loads of warning from Lord Haw Haw, who announced that they were coming, and that it might be prudent to move two elderly sisters (even gave their names) that lived close to the target area, to a safer location.

I never followed up on this but I did hear it from at least 4 or 5 different people over the years.

What station is that documentary on? I wonder if it will be repeated.

FiSe

It was on one of the BBC channels, if I remember correctly. I wouldn't take those 2 Spitfires seriously, although it could be truth. But even during the BoB the RAF workhorse was a Hurricane:

'....Perhaps the most significant new development had been the transfer, on 20 July 1940, to Aldergrove from Turnhouse, near Edinburgh, of a RAF squadron (No. 245) equipped with Hurricane fighters. Unfortunately these could only operate fully under daylight conditions; experts predicted that any enemy raid in force would be at night.....'

taken from:
http://multitext.ucc.ie/d/The_BlitzBelfast_during_the_second_World_War#3Antiaircraftpreparationsinthecity

V480

Dummy wrote: »

Was having a chat with a friend over weekend about Ireland during World War 2 and we got onto the topic of the Irish Navy during this time. Have just been reading up on it on the web and discovered that:

1. Ireland had 6 Torpedo Boats.

But more interestingly:

2. Also had a gun boat called the Murichu. It had been purchased from the British Navy and had formally been known as The Helga, used by the British to shell central Dublin during Easter Week 1916.
It was sunk (or it sank) en route to the scrap yard in 1946.

Frankly unbelievable that the Helga was scrapped, what the hell were they thinking?!

Judgement Day

V480 wrote: »

Frankly unbelievable that the Helga was scrapped, what the hell were they thinking?!

Have a look at this Spitfire thread and you won't be surprised as to why the Helga ended up the way it did. http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=303511

Official Ireland doesn't do preservation - unless it's some worthless piece of timber dug out of a bog that the elitists in the National Museum can pontificate about without danger of correction. Example below is the 'fascinating' Corlea Trackway OPW Centre in Co.Longford - money no object! :rolleyes:

Dravokivich

PatsytheNazi wrote: »

Watching a programme about the Luftwaffe bombing of Belfast in WW2, appearently NI had only 2 Spitfires to 'protect' it.

Was watching something within the last 2 weeks on that also. They were under the impression that Belfast would have been too far away initially during the early stages of the war. They also didn't seem too bothered once Germany took hold of France as they felt with towns such as Liverpool and Manchester being closer, that they'd likely be targets of interest over Belfast.

I believe it took a couple of raids for Belfast to even get spotlights.

Dummy

I have been asking friends about the torpedo boats and someone belives that 2 of them are mentioned in a book called Irish Shipwrecks (or similar name).

They seem to recall that one lies off Dun Laoghaire & the other at the bottom of the "canal harbour" (no idea what you call them) on Pearse Street.

I will have the book in 2 weeks and will be able to clarify if this information is correct.

getz

Dravokivich wrote: »

Was watching something within the last 2 weeks on that also. They were under the impression that Belfast would have been too far away initially during the early stages of the war. They also didn't seem too bothered once Germany took hold of France as they felt with towns such as Liverpool and Manchester being closer, that they'd likely be targets of interest over Belfast.

I believe it took a couple of raids for Belfast to even get spotlights.

over 1000,people were killed in belfast during the bombings ,america was building a navy ship yard in the north even before they entered the war,the free states lost a number of merchant ships and men when they got sunk by the german submarines.

Dummy

getz wrote: »

over 1000,people were killed in belfast during the bombings

I never knew that. That is a horrible loss of life. Is this commemorated at all?

trpsarge

Frankly unbelievable that the Helga was scrapped, what the hell were they thinking?!

It wasn't scrapped. It was on its way to the breakers when in developed a leak where plates parted and despite best efforts to plug the leak using cement boxes it sunk off the Saltee Islands off the Wexford coast and its exact position only came to light in the past few years .Fisshermen knew there was a wreck in the area as they were constantly loosing gear and stayed well clear of it but it was only confirmed by a dive on the wreck.

The Marine Service as it was know also had the mine Planter 'Shark and the traing Schooner 'Isaalt', and another Fisheries vessel the 'Fort Rannoch' during WW2.

Given on 1 september 1939 we hadn't even the basis for a navy with a very limited skillset the men of the Maritime Service and the Marine Inscription carried out their job to the best of their abilities.

It should be remembered that four men were lost during a boarding operation in Cork Harbour in 1941.