Well after all the excitement of Belfast, the historical
part has slowed right down. ‘Dead End in Dublin’ could be the title for this
chapter! Contact with the Commissioners
of Irish Lights (CIL) is proving difficult and the Liffey Dockyard Ltd., where
the conversion work was carried out on behalf of Belfast, has long since ceased
to exist. Pat Sweeney, the author of ‘The
Liffey Ships’, is being very helpful, but has not found any mention of the
Cormorant amongst his extensive research, even though it must have been a major
project for the yard at the time. So the only information I have so far about
the Cormorant before she became the Lady Dixon, is that she was built in 1876/78
by the Victoria Shipbuilding
Co., West Passage Cork, Ireland. She was 91 ft long, 21 ft wide and her draft
was 11ft. She cost £7,500 to build and served on many Irish stations. Her
construction was a composite of teak planking over Iron Frames. I have yet to
find any early photos or paintings of the vessel. There is a mention of her in
the history of another lightship when, in 1912 I believe, that vessel needed
repairs and Cormorant took over the South Rock station for a short time. That’s
it!
So, if any
of you know any influential members of the CIL Board, or worked in the Liffey
Dockyard during WWII ……….
Meanwhile,
Simon makes slow, but steady progress with the more important work. He has laid
and grouted the straightforward rows of tiles in the kitchen (Photos) and next
week will be doing the tricky edging and surrounds. I wish him luck – I have
never been able to cut a floor tile neatly, even when it was just a straight
line across the tile!
Just thinking back to those wonderful Masters’ log books, we
should not be surprised that the change(s) of name in 1943 were implemented on
the cover with a pen. It was war time after all.
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