The story of the Ouzel Galley
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The Pat Kenny Show on Newstalk. In 1695, a Dublin merchant ship set sail from Ringsend to Smyrna on what should have been a routine trading mission. It didn't return within three years of its departure, and so the ship was presumed lost. With Dublin merchants setting up an arbitration body to deal with the fallout, insurance was paid out and life moved on, until two years later, the ship reappeared. Joining me now to tell us the story of the Oozle Galley is historian and content creator Jane Casey. Jane, good morning and welcome.
Thank you for having me, Pat.
What was the story behind the Ouzel Galley ship's disappearance?
Now, this is an extraordinary story. I remember as a child passing by the Oozle Galley Lounge on Dame Street in Dublin. Never knew anything about the Oozle Galley, but you're now going to tell me that story.
Yeah, well, do you know what? I love that you called me historian. I call myself an armchair historian because I think my fascination is with little details around the city. It could be an etching in a brick or it could be a facade on a building, an old ghost sign from an old shop. I love those things.
But then you have to go digging.
And then I go digging and that's what I do online on Instagram. And this is probably the most interesting story I've ever come across, I suppose. So I don't remember the Oozle Galley Lounge, but I did find out about it in my research.
And there is a plaque.
And there is a plaque, yeah.
How did merchants react to the Ouzel Galley's presumed loss?
So just behind Donut Shop on Central Bank Plaza, there is a little plaque of a 18th century ship carved into the wall. And I spotted this and I said, what is that about? There must be something there. So I went digging and I found the story of the Oozle Galley. which was a merchant ship, as you said, it was a merchant ship in the late 18th century, or sorry, late 17th century, should I say. And it was on just a routine trading mission, went up the Liffey.
Now, what I found extraordinary was it was leaving from Ring's End to go to Smyrna, which is modern day Izmir in Turkey. That's a hell of a long way. What were they going for? Do we know?
A hell of a long way. We have to remember that back then Dublin was a hive, a busy port, you know, as it still is, I suppose. But if you can imagine all these tall ships lined up along the Liffey, up as far as Temple Bar, you know, really. So it was a very, very busy port. So this would be normal. This was business as usual. Ships would leave out to Ring's End, go off for years at a time. And remember back then there was no radios. Marconi, we're in Marconi House right now. Marconi wasn't to invent the radio yet. So, you know, you just kind of hope for the best and if they didn't come back after a certain amount of time when they should have, you eventually presume... And do we know, were they bringing anything with them to trade or was it cash or gold or whatever it might be?
have been a massive trading, you know, this would have been a trading hub. So like linens, there was linens, especially in Dublin, whiskeys, things like that. So, you know, we were quite an industrious country then. So it went for three years and after three years it never returned. So it was presumed lost. So they said, look, what are we going to do here? This is an absolute legal mess. So they were like, they settled everything. They settled insurance. The crew were mourned. Everything moved on. And two years after that. it reappeared up the Liffey.
If you can imagine everyone... Like a ghost ship.
Like a ghost ship with full crew and suspiciously lots more cargo, precious spices and treasures and things like that. So that caused even more of a legal mess. Who owns it now?
And if you expected the crew to be gaunt and starving, that was not the case.
They were absolutely grand. They were absolutely fine. So what happened then was a group of merchants got together, the same group of merchants that kind of settled the insurance claims and all that. They got together and said, OK, look, what are we going to do here? And they managed to sort out the legal mess. And that group of merchants, actually, it's a nice little tidbit.
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