All in the same boat
IN THE winter of 1796, the French sent 43 ships to Bantry Bay to liberate Ireland from British rule. Due to disastrous weather conditions and poor management, their mission failed. The only one of the vessels to land on Irish soil was a longboat.
That longboat is still with us today. Housed in the Collins Barracks museum in Dublin, it is the oldest surviving vessel of the French navy. By what can only be described as a serpentine twist of fate, Bantry is now preparing for an invasion of replicas of that same boat.
