Mweenish was well known for the building of traditional sailing boats, Galway Hookers. The one pictured on the 1982 stamp (left), the St. Patrick, was built by two brothers, Pat and Joe Casey from a highly regarded boat building family on Mweenish.
They laid the keel in 1909 and took two years in the building as they were building for themselves and in no hurry. In 1912 she carried Patrick Pearse, Thomas McDonagh and Joseph Mary Plunkett out to the Aran Islands where they attempting to organise the Irish Volunteers, with mediocre success it is said.
With the development of roads the use of these boats for coastal trade declined. By the 1960s the turf trade to the Aran Islands had died with the arrival of bottled gas. In 1963 the boat was sold to a group of enthusiasts in Galway City eventually passing to her final owner Paddy Barry in 1973. At the end of the 1974 sailing season the boat ended up in Paddy's backyard and he took five years to refurbish her.
Afloat in pristine splendour in 1979 she sailed around to the west coast and toured the traditional regattas in Connemara. That year she survived the Fastnet gale in Brandon Bay, Co. Kerry. In 1981 she went further afield for the first time, to Spain and back via Brittany and Cornwall. In 1985 she sailed the first stage of journey to America via Spain, Portugal and on to Madeira and Tenerife where she was taken out of the water for the winter. In 1986 she sailed to the US and took part (along with over 200 ships and boats) in the 4th of July Parade of Sail in New York Harbour to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Statue of Liberty.
She was shipped back across the Atlantic as deck cargo from Newark to Liverpool and sailed back to Dublin. Some years later she was completely wrecked after her mooring chain parted in Glandore harbour during a gale and she was driven onto nearby rocks from which she could not be salvaged.
See Paddy Barry's book "Voyage" - Published by Gill and McMillan, Dublin in 1986 - 7171 1441 4
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