The Ocean

Assimilation of the Gaelic people into the modern world was made difficult by the overwhelming economic and cultural domination of the peoples of the larger island, England.  Out on the west coast of Ireland, in the next parish over from Manhattan, the O'Flaherties evolved in a curiously isolated country.  They took to the ocean.

As early as the 1100's the clan was recognized for its ties to the sea, and an O'Flaherty and an O'Malley are listed  as admirals to the fleet of King Roderick O'Connor.  In 1969 the historian G.A. Hayes-McCoy wrote,

"…. The Irish were not interested in the sea, a curious deficiency in an island people. The maritime exploits of the dwellers on the west coast, particularly the O’Malleys and the O’Flahertys, are notable only because they are unusual; they show up the lack of interest of the rest. The English, on the other hand, were amphibious.”

At this juncture let me recognize Captain Kevin O'Flaherty of the USS George H.W. Bush who maintains the tradition of the O'Flaherty ties to the sea.  When you make your own personal O'Flaherty crest, Captain, don't bother putting an ancient Connactian Galley where a United States Navy Aircraft Carrier should be positioned.

One must remember that the O'Flaherties made there living from the sea, because the farm land in Iar-Connaught was so poor that the people had to "make land" in the crevices of the rocky shore to grow their crops.  Though derided as Pirates by the English, control of the sea off your own shore is not piracy, it's call Coast Guard.  The lessons of history involve the prejudices of the story teller.

So, here is my prejudice.  After the fall of Japan and the end of World War II, quartermaster William F. O'Flaherty, my father, briefly taught coastal navigation at the United States Naval Academy.  He wanted to make more money than the Navy offered him, and he was tired of the military mindset, so he pursued a career in business instead of continuing with the Navy.  Yet, he remained a "Navy man" all his life.

He never lost his love for the ocean.  How could he?  It was in his DNA.

The best description of life with the ocean as an O'Flaherty was written by Tom O'Flaherty in a book called "Aranmen All."

I never new any of this when I was sailing the limpid lagoons of Foster City, California in 1969.  Sailing was only fun, for me.  For others of the clan, in our history, sailing was life and death.

I would like to post a picture here of young seaman William O'Flaherty in 1943, but I seem to have used up too much bandwith the the pictures I've posted already.  At least I posted the church window.

This post is dedicated to Mrs. Kevin O'Flaherty.