The Aud

The Facebook page of Stair na hEireann carries the following text re the Aud and her attempt to land arms in Co Kerry just prior to the Easter Rising :

Today in Irish History: 9 April 1916 - The merchant ship Aud leaves Germany for Ireland with arms for the Irish Republican Brotherhood.

On 20 April 1916 the Aud, a Norwegian merchant ship, arrived in Tralee Bay off the west coast of Ireland. At dawn the next morning a pilot ship approached the Aud, flying the British flag of war. She was seized and towed towards Queenstown harbour (now Cobh). On route, the crew set off explosions to scuttle the ship and abandoned the sinking vessel, surrendering to the British.

In reality she was not a Norwegian merchant ship, only disguised as one. She was the German ship SMS Libau (previously the British vessel SS Castro captured by the Germans in 1914). And she wasn’t transporting just timber. She had on board an estimated 20,000 rifles, 1,000,000 rounds of ammunition, 10 machine guns, and explosives that were sent by the Germans in aid of Irish rebels planning the 1916 Easter Rising. Due to mis-communication, the cargo would never reach its destination.

The Aud left the Baltic port of Lübeck on this date in 1916. She was captained by Karl Spindler and carried 22 crew, all volunteers. They avoided British patrols as they headed into the North Atlantic before heading south towards the west coast of Ireland. The plan was to rendezvous with Roger Casement, who was instrumental in obtaining the weapons from Germany and was travelling on a U-boat to the rendezvous point. Once Casement was on the Aud the weapons would be transferred to a party of Irish Volunteers on the shore.

When the Aud arrived in Tralee Bay and sent out a signal, it was never answered. Casement didn’t arrive in Ireland until the 21 April and the Aud was already in British custody. Casement was later arrested, charged with treason, and executed on 3 August 1916. The car load of Volunteers who were tasked with collecting the landed weapons crashed on the way and never arrived. Once the Aud was seized Spindler knew he could do nothing but scuttle the ship.

Spindler and his crew were held by the British for the remainder of WWI. The wreck of the Aud was depth-charged and wire swept several times, not only to be sure that the weapons could not be recovered but also to keep the wreck from being used as cover by enemy U-boats. Several exploratory dives have been conducted of the wreck, the most recent one in June 2012 which led to the recovery of two anchors from the wreckage. Some of the rifles carried on the Aud were recovered before she was scuttled. Those rifles are on display in several museums including the Cork Public Museum, the National Museum of Ireland in Dublin, and the Imperial War Museum in London.


While elements are correct, there are a number of errors.

1. She was intercept by HMS Bluebell. Definitely not a pilot ship; HMS Bluebell was a Queenstown based sloop involved in anti submarine work amongst other activities.
2. Would like to know more about the "Flag of War" being flown.
3. The Aud was intercepted by HMS Bluebell and instructed to head to Queenstown. She was not towed and there was no opportunity to recover any rifles before her sinking. The Aud had been boarded previously but her disguise had worked and the cargo of arms and munitions were not discovered.
4. Rifles were recovered from the sunken Aud by Queenstown based diver John Dempsey. A number of these were presented as evidence at the trial of Sir Roger Casement.
5. Sir Roger Casement was charged with High Treason (an offence punishable by death) rather than Treason (an offence punishable by imprisonment). The British legal system had to use an ancient law written before the creation of the British Empire and before Ireland was annexed by Britain's Act of Union. Quite a bit of time was taken up in Sir Roger's appeal interpreting the original statute written in Latin and Norman French.
6. The car load of volunteers travelling to Co Kerry were tasked with radio communications and trying to obtain a wireless set from a Wireless College in Cahirciveen - the Aud had no radio but SM U-19 carrying Sir Roger Casement, Robert Monteith and Daniel Bailey did have a radio. Austin Stack and the Volunteers in Co Kerry were to take charge of the arms and munitions from the Aud and take care of their distribution. One car drove off the Ballykissane Pier on the 21st April 1916 and three Volunteers were drowned - Con Keating, Donal Sheehan and Charlie Monaghan. Denis Daly was in another car with Colm O'Lochlainn. Was the Aud already "in custody" when the 3 Volunteers drowned?


Mortimer O'Leary gives some information about the sighting of the Aud in the bay and of the proposed piloting of the ship into Fenit in his Witness Statement.