Girl Margaret RO 50

scrapped in ardglass a few years ago.

Seen her lying in the Inner Dock, brought a tear to the eye the state she was in Frank.
She got the biggest ring of herring I ever seen when Nancy Glen, Caledonia and her as Dalriada were a threesome at Inverness in the 60's, 5 or 6 boats round the net brailing them aboard and the sole of the net was'nt up, then a major task slipping what was left in the net when everyone was loaded, 1,000+cran in it no bother.

i believe she was a beauty when she came to ardglass-a succession of clowns fishing her put her down the drain. i bought her licence for the restless. some ring of herring it would have been interesting to know how much was actually in it.
    my grandfather made a ring in kincasslagh harbour with a big 30`yawl local legend has it that it took all the yawls between the three harbours 2 days to empty it. it was made in two or three fathom of water in real good weather and they had the yawl anchored to hold it-be nothing on the scale of the dalriada`s ring but with a small ring net it must have been a cracking shot.

Unbelivable as it sounds there were 15 or 16 men up the port side of her trying to get the net aboard, could hardly close the boats to complete the ring with weight of herring that was in the net, some man the skipper Robert Ross, made money every job he went to

would be nice to have a picture of that-no more than here a desperate shortage of fishing pics (then again-trying to close a ring like that nobody would have time to be taking pics!)

Daylight fishing, wouldn't catch a scale at night Frank, were 4 or 5 weeks up there, leave TT Monday morning, drive up and be in at the Thornbush Quay loaded late afternoon and be heading home on the Thursday to be back in time for supper, great job but was hairy drive with them always competing to see who could be home first, Caledonia man got the cup!!

4 day week-talk about handy and a nice clean fishing-the big pelagic boats have a lot to answer for.

Just laughing tae masel' reading aboot the driving John. Yon was the most hellish road on a winter night up round the head of Loch Leven before the bridge was built (and the road flooding at Loch Creran didnae help either).I got "relieved of command" by the Old Man one night in the snow after going off the road on one of the bends there(I can still see the corner coming up and me hammering the brakes,and wondering how the feck the car wis skiddin'!!)Needless tae say it wis a kicked ars* and the co-pilots seat for me after that.As far as speed goes...it used to take us 5 hours plus tae get fae Oban tae Buckie,albeit gaun fairly canny,but our neighbour James Mair of the Golden West could do it in less than 4 and frequently did.(as the Old Man said "no wi' me in the f ukkin' car he widnae !!")

Some hairy runs up there ronnie, nobody would go with R Ross the original bat out of hell, even his crew went up in seperate car, my brother went with him once to keep him company and never again, he had a V/W beetle that used to have steam coming oot the back of it

Disnae matter how fast ye go John,there's aye somebody faster.Big Jim Shelley(the Mingler) telt me when he was aboard wi' Jim Todd and Tam Batchelor on the Dunedin they could do Oban to Newhaven in two and a quarter hours nae bother...3 hours was normal for me or 15 minutes less if I was in a hurry and the road wis quiet,and I thought I wis doing well at that !! When ye think back it's a wonder how they all survived,they must have led a charmed life.