19th Century Cork Sutton Mariners, Sailing Ships and Crews

of the wrecking of the Sirius . Assiduous researchers will find a Voyage Account and Crew List from the Sirius for 1845 in excellent condition at the UK National Archives.

Sophia of Liverpool

( Mary )

Captain Robert Sutton (b.1836, Cork) was Mate on the Sophia of Liverpool during the American Civil War. He was blockade-running with rifled brass cannon and armaments for the Southern Confederates, when cornered by the Union Navy. The fascinating aspect of this tale are the three different versions extant. First was Mate Robert Sutton’s account in which he refers to the storm off the North Carolina Coast (Section 4: Fig. 28), the captain and some crew members getting killed and himself suffering the loss of his mariner papers. No discussion of a war, as Britain was officially neutral. The second was a sympathetic Confederate account, expressed by historians Wilde-Ramsing and Angley in 1985, which made no reference to storm or battle conditions: merely that trapped by the Union Blockade Fleet near Cape Fear, North Carolina, Sophia was fired upon and destroyed . ‘W ith the wrecking of Sophia on Nov 4th 1862, came the realization that blockade running was a very serious business since Union vessels for the first time in the war disregarded a white surrender flag and fired on the helpless boat ’ (Wilde-Ramsay & Angley 1985; Sutton 2017). The third version provided a Union perspective with both the storm and an active battle at the time of Sophia’s destruction. W. Craig Gaines (2008) portrayed the bombardment of Sophia and the capture of some of the Sophia crew members by Union sailors. This was complicated by the capture of some of the Union marines by Confederate soldiers on the beach. Finally, the wrecked ship was scuttled and torched in extreme conditions, to avoid salvage of weaponry by the Confederates (Sutton 2017) Mate Robert Sutton somehow escaped and got back to Cork in January 1863, where he renewed his lost Mate Certificate papers. He earned his Master Certificate of Competency at the Port of Cork later that year.

Spike Island

( Girl I Love )

The Victorian Prison on Spike Island, which opened during the Famine, held 59% of Ireland’s male convicts in 1853 and closed after 36 years in 1883. The book Too Beautiful for Thieves and Pickpockets by McCarthy and O’ Donnabhain (2016) has a photograph (this Appendix: Fig. 48) with a clear view of Spike Island taken from Bellevue Terrace, where, perchance, Deputy Harbour Master, Captain Nathaniel Sutton lived with his family until 1883. The hard labour provided by the inmates was of maritime significance: building the Haulbowline Royal Naval Dockyard, now the Irish Navy Dockyard) and production of oakum for caulking timber ships.

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