The Clare Champion Clare news, sport, entertainment and local notes
NOBODY in Kilbaha or Cross knows for certain when it happened. They are not even sure how many dead sailors are buried by the road side in Kilclogher, Kilbaha.
Some say the Yellow Men drowned in November 1873, while others believe that between nine and 11 men perished in the early part of the 1800s. The wretched story of the doomed sailors has been part of the peninsula’s oral tradition for almost 140 years and perhaps another 60 could be added to that if an exact date could be determined.
The midsummer Kilclogher vista doesn’t divulge or even hint at how enraged and inescapably deadly the glistening mouth of the River Shannon can turn. Ringed by narrow roads where the grass flourishes in the middle, Kerry Head and Loop Head are simultaneously visible, a mere 11 miles dividing them. Peer steadily and the Brandon Mountains in Kerry shimmer into view, while Kilbaha Bay is a short spin west, over land or water.
On Sunday after 11am mass, the Grave of the Yellow Men memorial, designed and created by Kilkee man Paddy Murray who taught for 30 years at Cross National School, will be unveiled by Fr Michael Casey. Nine headstones ring the grave where the stricken sailors were laid to rest during that ill-fated November.
“I think the nine unmarked flag stones are hugely evocative,” Paddy Murray reflects. “Generally speaking, names are engraved but sadly, these people’s names are lost. That’s where they ended up. I believe it was November and the sea was pretty angry. It was a sad end after a perilous journey,” he adds, gazing out upon a fraudulently, benign sea.
Paddy feels that marking the mass grave will help to retain a significant portion of peninsula history in the minds of local people, whose forefathers had fought to save their battered visitors.
“It’s one of our local stories that was handed down by the oral tradition and it’s very, very important to frame that story. It’s a place to visit and stop at. I think it will evoke a lot of interest,” Paddy predicts.
Without Seán Keating’s input, the Grave of the Yellow Men memorial would probably have remained a concept but not a reality. Although he has heard the story countless times, Seán could not contain his emotion at the imagery of distraught sailors dying in Kilclogher.
“The weather was exceptionally bad and it continued for about three days. They came ashore, most likely in a raft or if not in a small boat but they definitely came ashore alive here at this point. It looks very calm today but in rough weather, the sea actually would come up over the bank, which is 40 or 50 feet high. Probably the raft got caught in the rocks and they were thrown overboard,” Seán suggests softly.
“You can imagine three days at sea without food…They’d have little or no strength left,” he added.
It’s held locally that the ship originally sank at the Kerry side of the Shannon.
“The conclusion of a good few people, including historians on shipwrecks, was that the ship most likely got wrecked off Kerry Head. The man that owns the land here says that his grandmother used say that the year was 1873. That was her recollection of it so we worked on the 1873 theory. But the lighthouse keeper back there maintains that his grandmother used to talk about it too. He maintains it would have been pre-famine and it could well have been in the early part of the 19th century. The original belief was that the ship came in and got lost. That was a theory that was about but local divers Flan Gibson and others dived the area but could find no trace of the ship. Usually, the anchor would be found but they couldn’t find it,” Seán Keating explained.
The sailors origin has never been fully established. “They could be from anywhere along the Mediterranean or even some made out that they could have been from Portugal or Africa,” the former county councillor noted.
He can’t say for sure if nine or 11 men will be remembered on Sunday. “The two figures have been mentioned. They were recorded by different people at different times. That doesn’t really matter. The bodies are here anyway,” he said.
If the sailors died in the early part of the 1800s or during famine times, roadside burial would not have been unusual. However, they may have been buried on the Kilclogher roadside because they are likely to have been Muslim.
“The other thing that came more into the picture later was that burial wasn’t allowed on consecrated ground unless there was concrete evidence that they were in fact Christian. That’s a likely theory,” Mr Keating believes.
The summer sun is likely to be hanging high in the peninsula sky on Sunday, beating down on the people of Cross and Kilbaha as they pay their respects to the Yellow Men, who could not withstand the furious winter rages in their dwindling, desolate final hours.
The Grave of the Yellow Men
None knew from whither those drowned men came,
Swept in by the foaming tide.
So a grave was dug without a name,
Where they slumber side by side.
Their deeds are not spoken above the clay,
They perished we know not when.
Only a green mound marks today,
The Grave of the Yellow Men.
Even the wild wind sings their dirge,
While the sea birds in echo cry.
And eternally wet by the briny surge,
Is the spot where the strangers lie.
Benefiting for those whose lives are dark,
And whose death was full of pain,
But never recording stone doth mark,
The Grave of the Yellow Men.
Fond wives may have wept through the dreary night,
For the husbands they loved so well,
And at first faint dawn of welcome light,
Arisen, their beads to tell.
To hear the babes as the brightly wake,
Has father come home again?
Oh, hearts may have longed they might only break,
On the Grave of the Yellow Men.
We know they died on the raging deep,
But they lived we know not how.
Well their secret those slumberers keep,
None will ever tell it now.
But we know that the name of each lost one there,
Has been graved by his Maker’s pen.
Nor will He at last have forgotten where
To seek for The Yellow Men.
by Amy Griffin (RIP)
