According to the Irish Aviation Authority (IAA) there are no airships currently registered in Ireland. However, this was not always the case when as far back as 740 AD there were reported sightings of airships over County Offaly and for the duration of World War 1 these hydrogen-filled lighter than air (LTA) craft were a common sight over the coastal regions of Ireland.
ANCIENT AIRSHIPS
Our story of airships in Ireland begins in circa 740 AD and we reference numerous sets of the “Irish Annals”, chronicling Irish history from circa A.M. 2242 to A.D. 1616. Several Irish annals, including those from The Annals of the Four Masters, Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland and those from Ulster, Tigernach and Clonmacnoise all make brief references to ships in the sky. While the references are unclear by modern standards of observation, all of them reference “ships with their crews were seen in the air”.
Each of the annals differ on the exact year of these observations—743, 744, or 749. What gives credibility to the sightings of airships is that these noteworthy events are documented across multiple annal sets. Could they have been actual airships or perhaps UFOs?
Each week we travel to bring you our stories on Irish transport. Please support our travel costs click on the blue ‘Subscribe’ button on our Facebook page. Your support is gratefully appreciated.
Interestingly the earliest Irish transport story, involving a boat that we have come across is also contained in the Annals of the Kingdom of Ireland. This Annal begins with the following text: “The Age of the World, to this year of the Deluge, 2242. Forty days before the Deluge, Ceasair (Grand-daughter of Noah) came to Ireland with fifty girls and three men; Bith, Ladhra and Fintain, their names.”
The Irish poet (1939 – 2003) Seamus Heaney retold the story of airship sightings in Irish skies in a renowned poem found in his 1991 collection, “Seeing Things.”
FIRST IRISH BALLOON FLIGHT
Our story now takes us to the late 1700s and while not an airship the first manned balloon flight in Ireland took place on January 19th 1785 at Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens, Dublin, when Richard Crosbie took to the air and flew across the city to Clontarf. Ireland was also the site of the world’s first aviation accident at Tullamore, Co Offaly in 1785.
BALLOON CRASH
Back to our story of airships over Ireland when in 1907 the French-built semi-rigid airship “Lebaudy Patrie”, the first such craft built specifically for military service, crash landed in the townland of Ballysallagh, near Hollywood, County Down.
Based at the Verdun air station near the German border, the Lebaudy Patrie was forced to make an emergency landing near the town of Souhesmes on 29th November, when the clothing of one of the mechanics became entangled in the distributor drive gear. The subsequent day, amid a fierce storm, the airship broke free from its temporary moorings at Souhesmes. Despite the efforts of around two hundred soldiers attempting to restrain it, the Lebaudy Patrie was swept away by the strong winds and disappeared flying westwards.
Several observations of the Lebaudy Patrie were documented, with sightings confirming its flight over Cardigan (Wales) on the morning of Sunday, 1st December.
Later that day, she made landfall at Ballysallagh, near Holywood, County Down and in a violent crash landing experienced significant damage with the detachment of a propeller and bevel gear assembly.
Soon after shedding the weight of the propeller and bevel gear assembly, the Lebaudy Patrie ascended once more into the skies above Ireland. Its next sighting occurred to the north at a signal station at Torr Head on the Antrim coast. Subsequently, the airship was observed over St. Patrick’s Channel, between Ireland and Scotland. Last seen drifting northwards, near the Hebrides, the Lebaudy Patrie vanished from sight and was never seen again.
ANTI U-BOAT BALLOONS
The island of Ireland was still under British rule when war broke out with Germany in July 1914 and the waters of our coastline being the western approaches for the main English ports at Liverpool and Bristol were deemed geographically important for the war effort.
At the onset of hostilities with Germany, the prevailing military and naval consensus was that naval warfare would likely be limited to the North Sea or the English Channel. However, this perception quickly when the Kriegsman U-boats began operation in the Irish Sea and in January 1915, sunk three ships at the mouth of the River Mersey off Liverpool.
Following the torpedo attack on May 7th 1915 by U-boat Number 20 resulting in the sinking of the passenger liner R.M.S. Lusitania off the Old Head of Kinsale, County Cork, the priorities of the war effort shifted significantly. Following the sinking of the Lusitania the waters surrounding the British Isles was now vulnerable and required enhanced protection from the U-boat threat.
As a defensive weapon the seemingly fragile airship was a potent deterrent against the operational effectiveness of the U-boat Kriegsman (navy) fleet. The Royal Navy airship patrols employed a strategic approach of high visibility to deter patrolling U-boats. The idea was that the mere presence of the airship high in the sky would instil fear in the U-boat crews, compelling them to submerge to avoid detection or potential attack.
Being submerged significantly reduced the effective speed of the submarines, with their slow speed it was then impossible to line up torpedo attacks on shipping. According to historical expert Tony O’Mahony of “Cork Shipwrecks” “The proud boast of the Royal Naval Air Service during WW1 was that no ship had ever been sunk when escorted by an airship.”
In response to the U-boat threat, three airship “mooring-out” RNAS (Royal Navy Air Stations) were established in Ireland along the coastline of the Irish Sea. Larne, situated north of Belfast, served as a mooring-out station for airships from RNAS Luce Bay in Scotland. Malahide Castle served as a mooring-out site for airships from RNAS Anglesey in Wales, while Johnstown Castle, Wexford functioned as a mooring-out site for ships from RNAS Pembroke in Wales.
The three mooring-out stations on the island of Ireland either had very few purpose-built sheds and ancillary buildings or featured partially constructed buildings. The mooring-out stations were in woodland clearings as was the case at Malahide Castle outside Dublin where the trees on the estate provided natural windbreak protection. The airships were tied off to heavily anchored mooring points sunk deep into the ground.
The Irish based airships operated on 8-hour duty patrols over the Irish Sea reaching heights of up to 3,000 ft (914 m) and each evening returned to be tethered down to their heavy mooring rings. Mooring an airship required the efforts of as many as thirty men, a task frequently impeded if there were strong winds blowing.
THE FUTURE
While there are currently no airships based in Ireland, the IAA (Irish Aviation Authority) does have regulations in place where they define an airship as a power driven lighter than air (LTA) aircraft. The IAA regulations also state that an airship with a gas cubic capacity exceeding 3,000 cubic metres shall not be moored at any place within the State without the permission of the Authority.
Our story of airships over Ireland now brings us to the future and the Hybrid Air Vehicles (HAV) company who are planning to launch commercial airship services in 2025 with the aim of cutting flying’s carbon dioxide emissions by 90%.
Their 100-passenger Airlander 10 airship would take just over five hours to fly from Belfast to Liverpool and the company claim that the journey would take roughly the same time as aeroplane travel once getting to and from the airport was taken into account but would generate a much smaller CO2 footprint per passenger. Hybrid Air Vehicles are claiming that travelling on its airship would be about 4.5kg, compared with about 53kg via jet plane.
The Irish CityJet airline and Air Nostrum merged in 2023 to form the largest regional airline in Europe, while remaining as separate brands. Air Nostum has placed orders for twenty Airlander 10 airships, each with a capacity of one hundred passengers, with operations expected to commence in 2027.
In 2027 we may yet see airships flying over Ireland again!
Each week we travel to bring you our stories on Irish transport. Please support our travel costs click on the blue ‘Subscribe’ button on our Facebook page. Your support is gratefully appreciated.
If you have an idea for a story, email Kevin Reid [email protected]
Sources of information:
Airship Heritage Trust
AirshipsOnline.com
Brian Madden
By Lueger 1904-1920 – Lueger, Otto: Lexikon der gesamten Technik und ihrer Hilfswissenschaften, Public Domain,
Cork Shipwrecks – Tony O’Mahoney
Gerry Doyle
HybridAirVehicles.com
Imperial War Museum
Irish Aviation Authority (IAA)
Jean-Pierre Lauwers
Johnstown Castle
Killeaghinch and Inch Community Council
Malahide Historical Society
Richard Williams
Royal Irish Academy
Royal Naval Air Service Airships During the First World War – Guy Warner
The Age of Zeppelins
The Irish Times
Wikipedia: Airship of Clonmacnoise
