Kate Tyrrell

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Kate Tyrrell (* 1863 in Arklow ; † October 4, 1921 ) was an Irish captain and ship owner who enforced that women are entered as ship owners in the official documents.

Life

Kate Tyrrell was born in Arklow in 1863, the second of four daughters to Edward Tyrrell and his wife Elizabeth. Her father owned a small shipping company and was the captain of his own schooners that carried goods between Ireland and Wales . Tyrrell became interested in working on the ships at an early age, stayed in the shipyard and filled out the necessary shipping documents at the age of 12. It quickly became clear that she would succeed her father.

One of her younger sisters died of tuberculosis in the spring of 1882 and her mother, who also suffered from depression, fell ill as a result . After her mother got worse and worse, Tyrrell took over responsibility for the company's bookkeeping and housekeeping at the age of 19. In late 1882, Elizabeth Tyrrell, like her daughter, died of tuberculosis. In addition to household and business work, Kate Tyrrell found time to sail with her father. He promised her that one day she would own her own ship.

Ship owner

When Edward Tyrrell bought the schooner Denbighshire Lass in Wales in 1885 , he put his daughter Kate as owner, even if all three daughters had the same rights to the ship. Kate sailed the 62-ton ship from Wales to Ireland on the ferry. The Denbighshire Lass was the largest and most important ship in the small shipping company of the Tyrrell. In addition to coal, iron ore and textiles, it also transported fragile goods such as bricks and tiles.

Edward Tyrrell died of a heart attack on a voyage aboard the Denbighshire Lass in 1886 . Kate Tyrrell took over the family business, sold the other ships and became the sole owner of the Denbighshire Lass . As a woman, however, she was not allowed to be entered as the owner on official documents. So she had to register a trustworthy male employee, Lawrence Brennan, as owner, although she continued to run the company, take care of necessary repairs, manage the crew and organize the shipments. She introduced strict rules. It was forbidden for employees to be drunk on board. Anyone caught doing this was immediately released by her.

Her second younger sister also died of tuberculosis in 1888, so that only Kate and her older sister of the family were still alive and living in the family home. Her sister was now running the household and Kate was keeping company, spending most of the time at sea, learning to navigate and all aspects of sailing.

Inspired by the women's rights movement, she fought for the right to be registered as the owner on all official papers from the beginning of the 1890s. She achieved this goal in 1899. She was officially registered as the owner 14 years after she started working as a skipper.

During the First World War , the Denbighshire Lass navigated the mines of the Irish Sea without incident or insurance and was the first ship to fly the new Irish tricolor flag in a foreign port.

Marriage and death

Kate Tyrrell married John Fitzpatrick in 1896, the nephew of her colleague Brennan, who owned her ship for a long time on the papers. She had been friends with Fitzpatrick since childhood and he worked as a sailor and, after the death of Kate's father, as a captain on the Denbighshire Lass . Their son John was born in 1900 and their daughter Elizabeth in 1905. During this pregnancy and childbirth, Kate Tyrrell, who had retained her maiden name, suffered significantly and almost died. Her health did not fully recover. She stayed more and more on land until she finally gave up seafaring. Kate Tyrrell died in 1921.

Parts of her estate are in the Arklow Maritime & Heritage Museum in Arklow. On International Women's Day 2018, an event was held in Arklow in her honor.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Tyrrell, Kate. In: Kit Ó Céirín, Cyril Ó Céirín: Women of Ireland: a biographic dictionary. Tír Eolas, Kinvara 1996, ISBN 0-937702-16-1 .
  2. ↑ a b c d e Community Sites (www.communitysites.co.uk): Kate Tyrrell - Pioneering Sea Captain. In: countywicklowheritage.org. Retrieved May 12, 2019 .
  3. ↑ a b c d e f g h Marian Broderick: Wild Irish Women: Extraordinary Lives from History . The O'Brien Press, 2012, ISBN 978-1-84717-461-1 ( books.google.de ).
  4. ↑ International Women's Day: the inspiring lives of Ireland's fiercest females. In: irishcentral.com. IrishCentral.com, 2018, accessed May 12, 2019 .
  5. ↑ News. In: arklowmaritimeheritage.ie. Retrieved May 12, 2019 .
  6. ↑ Pioneering sea captain Kate to be celebrated. In: independent.ie. Independent.ie, accessed on May 12, 2019 .
personal data
SURNAME Tyrrell, Kate
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Irish captain and ship owner
DATE OF BIRTH 1863
PLACE OF BIRTH Arklow
DATE OF DEATH October 4, 1921