Sir, - In a generous reference to my book Howth - A Centenary of Sailing, Lorna Siggins, in a recent Irishwoman's Diary, discussed the possibility of restoring the Asgard to seagoing condition.Like most people, I have long found the story of Erskine Childers's transition from imperialist author of The Riddle of the Sands to Irish revolutionary patriot to be bewildering but intriguing. Thus I began to accumulate data on the man and his boats from the time that Asgard was recommissioned as Ireland's sail training vessel in 1968. So when Howth Yacht Club asked me to write the story of sailing at our port, it provided the opportunity to include an extensive chapter on the Childers/Asgard episode, and a number of readers have been kind enough to say that this analysis of the whole affair, as seen through a sailor's eye, gives a fresh and informative perspective on the activities of Erskine and Molly Childers.In fact, it may well be that the only way to understand Childers is through the sailor's eye. In the face of the "gun-running at industrial level" undertaken illegally by the Ulster Volunteers in 1914, the only possible response was Childers' somewhat Quixotic gesture of sailing in with a handful of guns for the Irish Volunteers right under the eyes of the Dublin authorities, and doing so in a masterful display of seamanship with a stylish little ship which was already a legend in sailing circles.For the Asgard was no ordinary vessel. She was a superb example of the best seagoing cruising yachts of her day, created as a work of art by Colin Archer in his final productive years as one of the world's most talented designers and builders of able craft, a great man whose main claim to fame is as the designer and builder of Norway's earliest lifeboats.Thus Asgard's significance goes far beyond her role in Irish history. So it is doubly to our national shame that she should now moulder in Kilmainham Gaol. Thanks to extensive research by the naval architect Myles Stapleton, the plans of Asgard as she was in 1905 are now in being, and it is surely our duty to see that she is restored to her original form as a ship of major international interest.But whether or not she should then be taken to sea, as proposed by Tim Magennis and the Asgard Restoration Group, is another matter entirely. Their plans presumably would include resuming her career as a sail training vessel. From a practical point of view, this would be too demanding on the skipper. It is quite difficult enough already running a sail training vessel, without having to be responsible for an international maritime historical treasure as well.So the logical course would be a patient restoration of Asgard to her 1905 design for eventual display in an appropriate setting, and the building alongside her of a sister-ship (people still build boats to Colin Archer's designs today) which could then be taken to sea without her crew being additionally saddled with the original's major historical significance.It would be a worthy indication of the maturity of our "Celtic Tiger Economy" if such a project could be properly undertaken. For already the inspiration of the original Asgard is with us in many ways. For instance, when the great Jack Tyrrell of Arklow was commissioned to build our current very successful sail training brigantine Asgard II, he was already 73 years old. But, knowing that Colin Archer has built the first Asgard at exactly the same age, he was inspired to create a masterpiece. As for Colin Archer himself, he was a Norwegian patriot of recent Scottish descent. It would be enormously beneficial for all if some families of more remote Scottish descent now in Ireland could see their new homeland in the same way. And finally, when Dr Osgood of Boston underwrote the building of Asgard in Larvik for his daughter and new son-inlaw, the year was 1905, the year in which Norway finally achieved full independence from Swedish rule. It was done peacefully. But when we remember the more ancient and bloodthirsty history of the Scandinavian kingdoms, there is surely inspiration in that orderly transition. - Yours, etc., W.M.
Nixon,Evora Park,Howth,Co Dublin.