Famous O'Briens in History
| EDWARD CONOR MARSHAL O'BRIEN - (1881-1952) YACHTSMAN AND AUTHOR |
| Born in Co. Limerick in November 1880, a grandson of William Smith O'Brien; educated at Winchester School, TCD, and Oxford. He was an architect by proffession and became a member of the Royal Society of Antiquaries of Ireland. He was also an original member of Sinn Fein. He delighted in sports that had an element of danger in them and was an expert yachtsman and mountaineer, often climbing in his bare feet. In 1914 in his yacht "Kelpie" he collected a cargo of arms for the Irish Volunteers from a German tug and transferred it to Sir Thomas Myles"s yacht "Chotab" for landing at Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow, assisted by Myle's, his sister Kate and two men from Foynes. Afterwards he joined the Royal Navy and served as an officer during the First World War. Some time after the war he returned to Ireland and had the ketch "Saoirse" built to his own design at Baltimore, Co. Cork. On 20 June 1923 at 4:30 pm he sailed from Dun Laoghhaire bound for New Zealand to join a mountaineering party. He arrived too late and sailed on, circumnavigating the globe and returning by way of Cape Horn. He sailed into Dun Laoghaire harbour precisely at 4:30 pm on June 20 1925, the first person to sail round the world in their own yacht. The Royal Cruising Club awarded him its challenge cup three times in succession for three succesive stages of his voyage. In 1927 another small yacht, the" Ilen" was built to his design and he sailed it to the Falkland Islands, He was an inspector of fisheries for a time under the second Dail and made an unsuccessful bid for the Seanad in 1925. "Saoirse" was his only home until he sold it in 1940. In 1928 he married an artist, Kathleen Frances Clausen,and went to Ibiza in the Balearic Islands, which was his base in the Mediterranean until 1931. His wife died that year and he moved to Conrwall, In 1926 he had published his first book, "Across Three Oceans", a description of his voyage in Saoirse, followed by "From Three Yachts (1928), He wrote a further dozen books, mostly on sailing but including several for children: "Two Boys go Sailing "(1936), "The Runaways" (1941), " The Castaways" (1946) and " The Luck of the Golden Salmon" (1951). Early in the Second World War he volunteered to serve in the Small Vessels Pool, a voluntary civilian service of small-boat owners. He sailed several small boats across the Atlantic from America to British ports at a time when they were badly needed by the Allies. Died on 18 April 1952 at his sister's house at Foynes, Co. Limerick. "Saorise is still in commission, sailing from the Royal Cornwall Yacht Club in Falmouth. |
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