The Last Riveted Ships in Europe: Dublin-Built M.V. Blarna & Cill Airne | Season 5 – Episode 54
Floats Jul 08, 2025
In December 1960, Cork Harbour Commissioners secured a £250,000 loan to fund the construction of two diesel-powered tenders to ferry passengers to and from transatlantic liners anchored off Cobh.
The tenders were built by the Liffey Dockyard in Dublin, with MV Blarna launched in May 1961, followed by her sister MV Cill Airne in February 1962. They were the third-last and second-last vessels built at the Alexandra Basin and are thought to be the last riveted ships constructed in Ireland, possibly the final ones of their kind in Europe.
The tenders were commissioned to serve the great ocean liners sailing from England, via Ireland, to New York. Too large for Cork Harbour, the liners anchored offshore while Blarna and Cill Airne ferried passengers, mail, and the occasional car back and forth. In quieter times, they also operated as excursion vessels, bringing in extra revenue from leisure cruises.
Both vessels went on to have remarkably different fates. MV Blarna ended up abandoned and sunken in Canada, while MV Cill Airne continues to serve today as a floating restaurant on Dublin’s River Liffey.
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BUILT IN DUBLIN
The tenders were constructed at the Liffey Dockyard, Dublin, where President Seán T. O’Kelly had opened the 200-metre Graving Dock No. 2 in 1957. At the time the Alexandra Basin dry dock was then celebrated as an “iconic State-funded enterprise” and a symbol of Ireland’s industrial aspirations.
Though electric arc welding had transformed shipbuilding during the Second World War, offering faster, cheaper, and less labour-intensive construction, riveting still held sway in Dublin’s yards in the early 1960s.
Riveting was gruelling, noisy work. The rivet heater would heat iron or steel rivets until red-hot, then toss them—sometimes through the air—to the catch-boy or holder-on, who inserted them into pre-drilled holes. The riveting gang, led by the riveter, hammered the rivet head into shape using pneumatic tools, while the holder-on braced it on the opposite side. As the rivet cooled, it tightened, drawing the steel plates into a watertight seal. It was dangerous, exhausting work, done with little or no safety gear.
END OF THE TENDER ERA
Even as the jet age arrived in the 1960s and transatlantic sea travel declined, the tenders worked on. Each could carry up to 1,400 deck passengers, spread across two saloons, one with a tea bar and served by ten crew members. Notable passengers included Hollywood stars Laurel and Hardy and U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower. But once the liners stopped arriving of Cobh, their futures became uncertain.
MV BLARNA
By 1966, with most transatlantic liners retired, MV Blarna was sold to the Bermuda Marine and Port Authority. Renamed Canima, she resumed tender duties in Hamilton, Bermuda, serving cruise ships, in a strange twist of fate many of them former ocean liners that she had served off Cobh.
She soon became a popular sight, later refitted as a party boat for American tourists. Her final college Spring Break cruise took place in March 1988. Later renamed Chauncey M. Depew, after a U.S. senator and railroad magnate, she was sold to Canadian owners and sailed to Méchins, Quebec, for conversion into a whale-watching vessel. That project failed, and she was moved to Trois-Pistoles, Quebec, renamed Gobelet d’Argent II (“Silver Goblet”) and briefly considered for ferry service, but plans again collapsed.
In the mid-1990s, she became a static disco-bar in Campbellton, New Brunswick, but this venture also failed. Sold yet again, she returned to the name Canima in Caraquet, New Brunswick, where she received hull repairs, new engines, and generators, but the owner died before the work was finished.
She was sold once more and moved to Shediac, New Brunswick, intended for conversion into a floating restaurant. However, in November 2003, a storm ripped her from the dock, grounding her in the bay. A second storm in 2005 pushed her even further into shallow water. After months of digging a channel, she was freed and brought to Pointe-du-Chêne Wharf, then later moved to Millbank near Lower Newcastle, New Brunswick.
Her long journey ended on December 13th 2012, when she sank at Miramichi pier. Salvage is deemed unlikely, and removal considered the only option – an ignoble end to a hardworking vessel that had served across two continents.
MV CILL AIRNE
Cill Airne found a more fortunate path. After retiring from liner service, she was acquired by Cork Institute of Technology as a nautical training vessel on the River Lee and Cork Harbour. She provided hands-on experience in radar, lifeboat drills, and engine room operations, but her training career ended with the opening of the National Maritime College of Ireland in 2003, which used advanced simulators.
Sold into private hands, Cill Airne underwent a major restoration. The Irish Barge & Fabrication Company removed training equipment at Cork Dockyard, and she was moved to Hegarty’s Boatyard near Skibbereen for interior refurbishment.
On May 25th 2007, she arrived in Dublin under her own power, now refitted with steelwork on the upper deck and clear wind-shelter screens. While these changes softened her once-practical lines, once defined by a single funnel and two lifeboats, her new role preserved her from the fate that befell her sister.
Today, Cill Airne stands proudly as a floating restaurant in Dublin’s Docklands, not far from where she was built, offering a rare and lasting tribute to Dublin’s shipbuilding legacy.
Sources of Information and Photo Credits:
Afloat.com
Creative Commons – Eric Jones
Dublin Port Archive
mvcillairne.com
National Library of Ireland
National Library of Scotland – Scottish Screen Archive
Pat Sweeney, in Liffey Ships & Shipbuilding
Royal Gazette (Canada)
Shipfax Blog – Canima – now on the bottom
Sunderland Built Ships – Shipping & Ship Building
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