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It would be easy to overlook Quilty as an unassuming village by a bend in the road between Milltown Malbay and Doonbeg; this would be a pity, for there is more to Quilty than meets the eye. Its most noticeable feature is what looks like in the distance - for it is visible for miles across the flat open countryside - a rather small round tower, which turns out is the tower of the local church. There are two beaches, the nicer one being easily missed, and some low cliffs, but the most interesting feature of the village is the church, which has a remarkable history.
Quilty's date with destiny arrived in October 1907 when a French three-master, the Leon XIII out of Nantes, was driven up on some of the very rocky reefs that stick of like teeth all around Quilty bay, and as the coastguard was unable to reach her, all seemed lost for ship and crew. The local fishermen however - in those days Quilty was a small and rather poor fishing village - had other ideas, and put out to see in their currachs; if you stand on the road and look out into the bay on a windy day, and watch the Atlantic breakers crashing on the reefs and cliffs all around you will have some slight idea of what these men faced in small open boats. They reached the wreck and somehow managed to save the crew and bring them safely ashore, and their heroic work is commemorated in the church itself, for they brought part of the Leon, washed ashore after she broke up, around the towns and villages of West Clare and raised by public collection the funds to build the village church - the very church that still serves today, and that stands as a fitting memorial to the stouthearted fishermen of Quilty, who rowed their home-made boats out the bay and into history at the height of the equinoctial gales nearly 100 years ago.
The church porch contains a replica of the Leon XIII in a glass bottle, a very small photograph of some of the heroes and two long poems composed in honour of the event: 'The Quilty Heroes' and 'Quilty's Heroes'. A flavour of these is as follows :
The Quilty Heroes (J. McD, undated)
"See that stately clipper shattered
On the iron reefs of Clare,
O'er her rolls the wrath of Neptune
Hear the cries of wild despair ..."
Quilty's Heroes (Joseph Meade, Mullagh, 1907, Nov 11th)
"I sing of Quilty's sons so brave
Poor toilers of the deep ,
Who from the rage of seething seas
The Leon's crew did sweep ... " |
In 1949 the Irish agents presented the ship's bell to Quilty church, and it can be seen in front of the altar, suitably inscribed.
Other towns of County Clare
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