The very first airplane over Dundalk

People of Dundalk are used to aeroplanes flying over North Louth in the 21st century but the skies over the old Town has been eerily quiet over the past four months, due to the Covid 19 pandemic! The con-trails, however, are beginning to creep black into the 'blue patches' on fine mornings in recent weeks and I find myself looking up to try to spot them. These giant liners of the skies are flying so high that you can scarcely hear the sound of them until after they have passed but modern technology has made it possible for ordinary folk to know exactly what sort of 'planes they are, where they are going and, maybe, even their cargo. A neighbour of mine has an app on his smartphone which can reveal this sort of information.

All this has got me to wondering what it must have been like for people who had never seen an aeroplane previously? Young people might be forgiven for thinking that this was something from the dim and distant past that has passed forever but I can recall, from my own youth, old people telling me of the wonder of seeing a 'heavier than air' machine, as they were once called, for the very first time!

This very thought has come back to me during the 'lock-down' when I came across an old journal loaned to me by the late Canice O'Mahony over a decade ago which, to my discredit, I never returned. It is an edition of The Irish Sword, the Journal of Military History Society of Ireland, in which there is a description of the very first squadron of the Royal Flying Corps to reach Ireland in September 1913.

The article was written by a Guy Warner about whom I know little. It is about the flight of six military aircraft from a military base at Montrose in Scotland which were being transferred to a base near Limerick. They departed from Montrose and landed on a beach at Newcastle, near the Slieve Donard Hotel at 1.50 pm on September 1, 1913.

There had been other 'flying machines' in air over Ireland before that date and, indeed, I have read that Harry Ferguson, the famous designer of a make of farm tractor, was the first Irishman to make and fly his own plane in County Down on a earlier date, to whom there is a aeroplane monument near Hillsboro.

This flight in 1913 was something very different because it included an aircraft that was to be the very first to land in Dundalk 107 years ago. It was a bi-winged craft called a Maurice Farman Longhorn and it was flown by an Englishman who was born in Dublin in 1881when his mother was visiting his Irish grandmother. His name was Captain George Dawes who had served in the Royal West Surrey Regiment of the British Army and joined the Flying Corps in 1912. I wonder if he has any relatives still living in Ireland?

To cut a long story short, the Sword article records that, while most of the squadron flew directly to Dublin --- 'Captain Dawes broke his journey at the Royal Field Artillery Barracks in Dundalk'. The article quotes a report from the 'Dundalk Examiner' dated September 1913 which reads ---

'On Monday evening about 4 o'clock the machine was first sighted in the direction of Carlingford when it appeared as a mere speck above the horizon. It seemed to have claimed the attention of the inhabitants of the air first, many birds being much perturbed in the vicinity of Dundalk Bay. Soon the airman was steering his course up the Bay, taking practically the same line as a ship entering the Harbour would have taken.'

Dawe's first attempt at landing was aborted, as he was too close to a boundary fence. Some horses (military?) had to be removed from the field and he took the opportunity to circle the Town. As he did so, the crowd began to gather.

'This time he came right over the fence and alighted in quite a central position with a precision and smoothness that evoked much favourable comment. This was Dundalk's first experience of the landing of an aircraft.'

The article by Warner goes on to state that --- 'Dawes commented that he had maintained a height of 3,000 feet and that he had covered about 65 miles (from the beach at Newcastle?) in about an hour.

During the course of the evening many local people took the opportunity to visit the Barracks grounds to view the aeroplane. About 3,000 gathered the following afternoon to watch the departure.'

'After running a short distance the machine gracefully and gradually ascended. The spectators cheered enthusiastically but, in a few minutes, the aeroplane was lost to sight.'

This local newspaper report would seem to indicate that, while this was the first aeroplane to land in the area, there may have been others seen in the air over North Louth at an earlier date.

I wonder who wrote the report? Was it by any chance Paddy Duffy, of Clanbrassil Street, who later was to write 'The Book of Dundalk', whom I know was a young reporter working for the Examiner in I913. Strangely he does not mention the incident in his book published in 1946 but then a lot had changed in Dundalk over the thirty years in between!