The Wright Brothers famously achieved the first controlled, powered flight in a heavier-than-air aircraft on December 17th 1903. But long before that milestone, people had been striving to fly. Throughout history, countless inventors and dreamers built imaginative often wildly impractical, flying machines. Many of these early attempts ended in disaster, with serious injuries and numerous deaths.
IRISH AERONAUTS
In Ireland, the skies first called to early “aeronauts,” including Richard Crosbie, who in 1785 became the first Irishman to ascend in a balloon. Coincidentally, 1785 also saw the world’s first recorded aviation accident, in Tullamore, County Offaly. We’ve covered both stories previously, check the links below.
If you enjoy this, hit LIKE and FOLLOW. Your support helps keep Irish transport history alive.
But the challenge of powered flight remained. Even 71 years after Crosbie flew from Ranelagh Pleasure Gardens to Clontarf, the dream persisted, most notably with the flamboyant Viscount Carlingford, Godwin Meade Pratt Swifte (1806–1864), who envisioned taking to the skies in a machine of his own design and construction.
THE SWIFTE’S
The Swifte family held land in Meath and Kilkenny, where the self-styled Viscount Carlingford, though his claim to the title is disputed, lived at Swifts Heath, a grand house built around 1750 by an ancestor. Godwin Swifte developed a passion for aeronautics and experimented in his workshop, set up in the dining room at Swifts Heath. Interestingly, the house also contains Ireland’s oldest indoor toilet.
AERIAL SCREW PATENT
In 1856, Swifte patented (No. 2993) an invention he dubbed “an aerial screw.” According to contemporary newspaper reports, often sceptical, it was “the complete solution to the problem of aerial navigation,” but scientific minds of the time largely dismissed it, seeing neither its ingenuity nor potential.
AERIAL CHARIOT DESIGN
Though lacking real aeronautical knowledge, Swifte pressed on with absolute faith in his creation. He built what he called “an aerial chariot or apparatus for navigating the airs” using strong local Irish oak.
The design featured a boat-shaped carriage with one front wheel and two at the rear. Its silk-covered wings were made from a grid of square panels, which he claimed would mimic bird feathers and allow it to float through the air. Altitude was controlled by raising or lowering the tail with a simple cord.
Propulsion came from an “aerial screw” set at a 45-degree angle, intended to twist like a bird’s wing, powered via a winch and a system of three multiplying wheels. Swifte claimed a five-inch version of the screw had lifted a ten-pound weight, leading him to believe little force was needed to achieve powered flight.
MORE POWER
But, like a Victorian Jeremy Clarkson, Swifte decided more power was better. He proposed three draught horses, “arranged in arrowhead formation,” would supply the necessary drive. To transfer their power, he built a mechanism using rollers, canvas strapping from a reaping machine, and a leather drive belt. Swifte must have had deep belief in his vision, as it’s hard to imagine he truly thought adding three draught horses, weighing around 9,800 kg, to an oak-framed aircraft would enable graceful, powered flight.
The chariot, named Oakenswift in tribute to its oak frame, was built inside the dining room at Swifts Heath. But once finished, it wouldn’t fit through the door. Undeterred, Swifte had the door removed, and when that failed, he had part of the wall torn down to get it out.
PRE-FLIGHT PREPARATIONS
With Oakenswift complete plans were made for a maiden flight. For the launch, Swifte selected his Foulksrath Castle, a four-storey stone fortress dating to 1349, located nearby at Jenkinstown, County Kilkenny.
Swifte’s brother John arranged a garden party in Rathfarnham, a suburb of Dublin, 148 km from Foulksrath Castle. Guests were to witness Swifte’s dramatic arrival as he descended from the skies aboard his three-horsepower chariot.
FIRST FLIGHT
On the chosen day Oakenswift and the three horses were hauled onto the battlements at Foulksrath Castle, no small feat of engineering. The rooftop scene must have been chaotic: the bulky craft, three large and panicked horses, and a crew scrambling to prepare for launch.
Swifte had outlined the launch in his 1856 patent: “The bow of the car is connected to two lines passing over pulleys… weight is attached to the other ends… Releasing the trigger causes the lines to pull the machine forward… The machine becomes free, and speed is sustained by turning the aerial screw.”
But as the time for launch approached, Swifte reconsidered. As a Viscount, he had the luxury of delegation, so he ordered his unfortunate butler to pilot Oakenswift into the air. Contemporary accounts differ some say a custom catapult was built atop the battlements; others suggest the entire rig, with horses and butler, was simply heaved off.
THE LANDING
Either way, the outcome was grim. The unwieldy, oak-framed contraption, weighed down by nearly ten tons of horse and man, plunged from the ramparts in what must have been a short, terrifying flight.
It’s unknown whether the horses survived. Oakenswift, on impact was completely destroyed, and the butler—whose name was never recorded—came to amid the wreckage, nursing a broken leg.
According to Jack Plane’s The Butler Did It on the Pegs and Tails blog, citing Swifte’s descendant Geoffrey Marescaux, the butler was awarded Danville House and a lifetime pension for his service.
THE CARLINGFORD SCREW
Though the aircraft was lost, its hand-carved mahogany propeller, “The Carlingford Screw”, was later found by the butler’s wife in a garden bush. Today, this relic of Swifte’s doomed aeronautical adventure is preserved and on display at Rothe House in Kilkenny.
Sources of Information and Photo Credits:
Aëronautics: An Abridgement of Aëronautical Specifications Filed at The Patent Office (1815 – 1891) – Brewer & Alexander
Irelands Curious Places – 100 fascinating, lesser-known treasures to discover by Michael Fewer
Kilkenny Archaeological Society
Old Kilkenny Review
Pathé/ Reuters
Pegs and Tails Blog – The Butler Did It by Jack Plane
Rothhouse.com
Wikipedia – Foulksrath Castle
If you have a story to share, email Kevin Reid [email protected]
Each week, we journey across Ireland to uncover and share the hidden history and often overlooked stories of our transport heritage. These journeys take time and fuel—and they all add up. If you’ve enjoyed our stories and would like to support this work, please consider subscribing for just €2 a month at www.irelandmade.ie. Your support helps keep the wheels turning and the stories coming.
Thank you for being part of the journey
