Ilen commences voyage to track Atlantic salmon routes

Ireland’s oldest sailing trading ketch sets sail for Greenland tomorrow as part of a project marking the migratory route of the wild Atlantic salmon.

The 1,200 nautical mile voyage by the 17m Ilen from the Shannon estuary up the west Greenland coast marks another milestone for the refurbished craft, built more than 90 years ago by global circumnavigator Conor O’Brien.

Skipper for the voyage will be polar yachtsman Paddy Barry, while the crew will include Limerick graphic artist Gary McMahon who spearheaded the community project to rebuild the Ilen in Limerick and west Cork.

The nine-week educational voyage to Greenland will follow the migratory route of wild salmon between the Shannon estuary and the river Kapisillit at the head of a fjord close to the island’s capital, Nuuk.

The programme aims to strengthen links which the Ilen boatbuilding network has developed between schools in greater Limerick and south-west Greenland, says Mr McMahon. Inland Fisheries Ireland has welcomed the trip which celebrates the International Year of the Salmon.

Also on board with Mr Barry and Mr McMahon will be Kerry musician Breanndán Ó Beaglaoich, Mike Grimes, Mantas Seskanskis, James Madigan, Ronan Ó Caoimh, Mick Ruane, Seamus O’Byrne, and Justin McDonagh.

The crew will deliver a traditional Limerick Shannon salmon-fishing cot which the Ilen boatbuilding school constructed, as a gift from Limerick city to the people of Nuuk, Greenland’s capital city.

The vessel may make landfall at Cape Farewell, on Greenland’s southern tip, and the ultimate destination is Disko Bay, western Greenland’s largest open bay, which has been gradually warming since 1997.

Earlier this month, Irish adventurer Jamie Young set sail for Greenland on board his 15m aluminium yacht Killary Flyer, as part of a two-year Dutch-Irish film project to document the impact of climate change.

The Ilen was originally built in west Cork for Co Limerick sailor, mountaineer, and junior partner in the Howth gun-running plot, Conor O’Brien, who left Ireland in 1923 to sail around the world in a timber-built ketch named Saoirse.

So impressed were Falkland islanders with the Saoirse that Mr O’Brien commissioned a similar but slightly larger vessel for them when he got home. Mr O’Brien sailed the Ilen , named after the west Cork river, to the Falklands in 1926 with two Cape Clear islanders, Denis and Con Cadogan.

The Ilen worked as an inter-island trader for several decades and was then tracked down and shipped home by Mr McMahon. The Ilen is due to leave Limerick’s Ted Russell dock tomorrow, at 5pm.