Patrick Comerford
Tomorrow is Saint Martin’s Day (11 November), and in a blog posting tomorrow I hope to offer a ‘virtual tour’ of 12 cathedrals, churches and chapels I know across five countries and two continents that are dedicated to Saint Martin of Tours.
When I was living in Wexford, I heard some of the folklore, superstitions and traditions associated with Saint Martin’s Eve tonight and Saint Martin’s Day on 11 November, the best-known of which is the tradition among fishermen not to put to sea on Saint Martin’s Eve or Day.
Local legends in Wexford tell of a fleet of fishermen caught out on the water when an apparition of Saint Martin appeared walking across the waves, or riding a white horse, warning everyone to head for harbour. Those who ignored the warning and stayed out perished in a sudden, violent afternoon storm.
The legends say that one year on Saint Martin’s Eve, a huge shoal of herrings approached and the local fishermen defied tradition. As the fishermen rowed out of the port, Saint Martin appeared riding a white horse and waved them back to shore. Two of the crews obeyed the saint’s warning and turned back. The other fishermen cast their nets, looking forward to a huge catch. But before they could haul in their bulging nets a fierce storm arose and overwhelmed them. It is said that 70 fishermen from Wexford drowned that Saint Martin’s Eve, 10 November.
Historians suggest the disaster took place in Wexford Bay in 1762. But when the poet John Boyle O’Reilly (1844-1890) wrote his poem ‘The Fishermen of Wexford’, he suggested the tragedy took place two generations earlier in 1702.
‘The Fishermen of Wexford’ by John Boyle O’Reilly
There is an old tradition sacred held in Wexford town,
That says: ‘Upon St Martin’s Eve no net shall be let down;
No fishermen of Wexford shall, upon that holy day,
Set sail or cast a line within the scope of Wexford Bay.’
The tongue that framed the order, or the time, no one could tell;
And no one ever questioned, but the people kept it well.
And never in man's memory was fisher known to leave
The little town of Wexford on the good St Martin’s Eve.
Alas! alas for Wexford! once upon that holy day
Came a wondrous shoal of herring to the waters of the Bay.
The fishers and their families stood out upon the beach,
And all day watched with wistful eyes the wealth they might not reach.
Such shoal was never seen before, and keen regrets went round –
Alas! alas for Wexford! Hark! what is that grating sound?
The boats’ keels on the shingle! Mothers! wives! ye well may grieve, –
The fishermen of Wexford mean to sail on Martin’s Eve!
‘Oh, stay ye!’ cried the women wild. ‘Stay!’ cried the men white-haired;
‘And dare ye not to do this thing your fathers never dared.
No man can thrive who tempts the Lord!’ ‘Away!’ they cried: ‘the Lord
Ne’er sent a shoal of fish but as a fisherman's reward.’
And scoffingly they said, ‘Tonight our net shall sweep the Bay,
And take the Saint who guards it, should he come across our way!’
The keels have touched the water, and the crews are in each boat;
And on St Martin’s Eve the Wexford fishers are afloat!
The moon is shining coldly on the sea and on the land,
On dark faces in the fishing-fleet and pale ones on the strand,
As seaward go the daring boats, and heavenward the cries
Of kneeling wives and mothers with uplifted hands and eyes.
‘Oh Holy Virgin! be their guard!’ the weeping women cried;
The old men, sad and silent, watched the boats cleave through the tide,
As past the farthest headland, past the lighthouse, in a line
The fishing-fleet went seaward through the phosphor-lighted brine.
Oh, pray, ye wives and mothers! All your prayers they sorely need
To save them from the wrath they’ve roused by their rebellious greed.
Oh! white-haired men and little babes, and weeping sweethearts, pray
To God to spare the fishermen tonight in Wexford Bay!
The boats have reached good offing, and, as out the nets are thrown,
The hearts ashore are chilled to hear the soughing sea-wind’s moan:
Like to a human heart that loved, and hoped for some return,
To find at last but hatred, so the sea-wind seemed to mourn.
But ah! the Wexford fishermen! their nets did scarcely sink
One inch below the foam, when, lo! the daring boatmen shrink
With sudden awe and whitened lips and glaring eyes agape,
For breast-high, threatening, from the sea uprose a Human Shape!
Beyond them, – in the moonlight, – hand upraised and awful mien,
Waving back and pointing landward, breast-high in the sea ’twas seen.
Thrice it waved and thrice it pointed, – then, with clenched hand upraised,
The awful shape went down before the fishers as they gazed!
Gleaming whitely through the water, fathoms deep they saw its frown, –
They saw its white hand clenched above it, – sinking slowly down!
And then there was a rushing ’neath the boats, and every soul
Was thrilled with greed: they knew it was the seaward-going shoal!
Defying the dread warning, every face was sternly set,
And wildly did they ply the oar, and wildly haul the net.
But two boats’ crews obeyed the sign, – God-fearing men were they, –
They cut their lines and left their nets, and homeward sped away;
But darkly rising sternward did God’s wrath in tempest sweep,
And they, of all the fishermen, that night escaped the deep.
Oh, wives and mothers, sweethearts, sires! well might ye mourn next day;
For seventy fishers’ corpses strewed the shores of Wexford Bay!
But the maritime tradition of Wexford goes far beyond the fishing boats and the threats and dangers extend far beyond storms and traditions about Saint Martin’s Eve and Saint Martin’s Day.
One of the most prominent maritime monuments on the Quays is the statue of Commodore John Barry (1745-1803), founder of the US Navy. The statue on the Crescent was presented by the US and was unveiled 70 years ago on 10 July 1956.
Close-by, the MV Kerlogue Memorial on the Crescent Quay, beside the railway line, commemorates the heroic crew of the Irish merchant steamship MV Kerlogue who rescued 168 German sailors from the water in the Bay of Biscay on 29 December 1943 after a naval battle following a World War II.
The Irish Mariners Memorial in Wexford, also on Crescent Quay, commemorates Irish merchant seamen and mariners lost at sea during World War II, including local crews who perished aboard the SS Irish Pine and the MV Cymric between 1939 and 1945.
The SS Irish Pine was state-owned Irish Shipping cargo ship that was torpedoed and sunk without warning in November 1942 by a German U-boat (U-608) in the Atlantic Ocean, with the loss of all 33 crew members. The MV Cymric was an Irish-flagged motor vessel or schooner that operated dangerous wartime cargo and supply runs in the Atlantic and was lost at sea in 1944.
The memorial also pays tribute to other Irish merchant vessels lost during World War II, such as the SS Kyleclare, SS Ardmore, SS Kerryhead and SS St Fintan.
I lived for some months at the end of 1974 in a house in Rosslare Strand, Co Wexford, that was owned by the Martin family and that was named Kerlogue. On Sunday morning (8 November 2026), on Remembrance Sunday, one of the hymns I sang began with the verse:
Eternal Father, strong to save,
whose arm doth bind the restless wave,
who bidd’st the mighty ocean deep,
its own appointed limits keep;
O hear us when we cry to thee
for those in peril on the sea.
Tomorrow is Remembrance Day as well as Saint Martin’s Day. The words of that hymn and the memorials on the Quays in Wexford area reminder that all war heroes are not necessarily combatants, and that during war those at sea often risk their lives so that others may live, even those seen as enemies.
Meanwhile, more tomorrow evening, hopefully, about Saint Martin of Tours and the cathedrals and churches dedicated to him.
Mary O’Brien of Wexford reads ‘The Fishermen of Wexford’ by John Boyle O’Reilly overlooking Wexford Quays
