Johnny Doyle: Howth Landing 26th July 1914 and Kilcoole Landing 2nd August 1914

On display at the National Museum in Dublin in its own building is the yacht Asgard, having undergone major conservation work. An excellent, free exhibit to head to if you are in Dublin on top of all the other excellent displays at Collins Barracks.

Originally owned by Erskine and Mary/Molly Childers (a wedding present from Molly's father) it was one of several boats used to transport guns and ammunition for the Irish Volunteers in 1914.

The crew of the Asgard for the trip were :

Erskine Childers
Molly Childers
Mary Rice Spring
Gordon Strachy Shephard (aka "Mr Gordon"), a British soldier.
Patrick McGinley
Charles Duggan

Mary Rice Spring kept a diary of the voyage and this is available to read online at :

Diary of the Asgard

The Asgard entered Howth harbour with its cargo of 1500 rifles and 29000 rounds of ammunition in daylight on the 26th July 1914. Remarkably, the Irish Volunteers had only been formed the previous November and it was quite a job putting the money, contacts and plans together in that time. The daylight landing was a deliberate propaganda coup.

As part of the same operation, a second landing took place at Kilcoole, County Wicklow. 600 rifles and 20000 rounds of ammunition had been loaded onto a boat called the Kelpie on 12th July 1914. The Asgard had been loaded the same day just after the Kelpie - the original plan was that they would take half each. Kelpie was full; Asgard was seriously overloaded with the extra cargo. On the 24th July off the coast of Wales, the Kelpie cargo was transferred to a larger boat, the Chotah. Assisting in the landing at Kilcoole was the Nugget, a small trawler from Howth.

Unlike the Howth landing, the Kilcoole landing in the early hours of 2nd August 1914 was a much more secretive operation, taking place during darkness and avoiding the interference by the British that resulted in the deaths at Bachelors Walk following the Howth landing.

Though there were two landings, all the rifles landed are generally referred to as "Howth Mausers".

Aboard The Kelpie

Connor O'Brien (owner)

Kitty O'Brien

Diarmuid Coffey

Thomas Fitzsimons

George Cahill

Aboard The Chotah

Sir Thomas Myles (owner)

James Creed Meredith

Thomas Fitzsimons (transferred from Kelpie)

George Cahill (transferred from Kelpie)

Hervey de Montmorency

Aboard The Nugget

James McLoughlin (Skipper)

Nicholas McLoughlion (crew)

William McLoughlin (crew)

Michael Moore (crew)

Edward Moore (stowaway)

Frank Daly (IRB)

Luke Kenny (IRB)

Sean Tobin (IRB)

The rifles transported by the above boats were Mauser M1871, single shot, black powder weapons firing an 11mm round - surplus that had been acquired by arms dealer Moritz Magnus.

Ian McCollum (aka "Gun Jesus") has a fairly watchable video re the Howth Mauser giving some background to the Childers etc, showing the workings of the rifle, and discussing the hash made of attaching bayonets, while Mae at C&R Arsenal gives a very quick demo in her video firing this beast of a rifle.

The weapons were being stored in Liege, Belgium at the time of their acquistion by the Irish Volunteers and as part of their ruse, their purchase was earmarked as being for Mexico. They were to be exported via Hamburg where there was the possibility of being impounded by German customs officials. The weapons were not being sent to Ireland at the behest of the German government.

Further Reading

Two very readble publications on the operations :