View from the Green Room: The Wreck of the Sea Horse
The 293 tonne Sea Horse was one of three ships transporting soldiers, after the Battle of Waterloo, that set sail from Ramsgate for Cork.
Well, everyone knows the story of the Sea Horse. The ship that sank in Tramore Bay with great loss of life, and that’s embedded in the folk memory of Tramore. With memorials on the Doneraile, on the Prom and on the towers overlooking Newtown Cove. Or do they?
A full house at Tramore Coastguard Cultural Centre suggests otherwise.
James Power’s Stagemad Theatre Co., based in Tramore, has set its sights on a dramatised reading of the events that led up to the fateful morning of January 30th, 1816, when the ship Sea Horse, with 394 souls on board – 16 were officers with 287 men, 33 women and 38 children – was wrecked with only 30 survivors.
The 293 tonne Sea Horse was actually a merchant ship. It was one of three ships transporting soldiers, after the Battle of Waterloo, that set sail from Ramsgate for Cork, along with the Boadicea carrying 290 troops with 34 women and children, and the Lord Melville with 450 souls on board on their perilous journey.
Only 12 souls perished on the Lord Melville. However, the Boadecia was less fortunate. Although the ship rounded Kinsale Head it was driven onto the shore at Garretstown Beach and broke up. About 100 people managed to scramble onto a large rock, but 190 died of the 324 aboard.
Tonight’s performance takes the shape of four readings of these events – the Battle of Waterloo from David Marchant, the voyage and wreck of the ship narrated by Garret Wyse as ship’s captain Gibbs in graphic detail, the heroic if futile efforts of local people to assist as told by Lauren Cardiff and an exploration of the perils of Tramore Bay as recounted by Mark Waters.
The wreck of the ship led to the erection of the towers, financed by Lloyd’s of London, on Newtown Cove's cliffs with the Metalman (there are five others around the Irish coast) admonishing those who sail too close to the rocks. Along with the two towers on Brownstown Head and the towered lighthouse at Dunmore East, they indicate the path to Waterford harbour.
The evening was linked by Áine McCarthy-Kent on flute and rounded off with a performance of The Ballad of the Metalman that was composed by Mark Waters and Mick Cullen and performed on the night by Mark and Áine.
