Despite approaching its Centenary in 2029, the Irish Cruising Club has never had a Centenarian among its membership until today, Friday 31st May 2024, when the great and unique Jack Wolfe of Howth reaches the magic hundred.
His life is - and has been - an extraordinary story, taking in car rallying and hill climbs, and several other sports, with boats increasingly important as the years passed. An early experience in his sailing career was a partnership in the Dublin Bay 21 Estelle sailing from the Royal St George YC in Dun Laoghaire – “The DB21s were a wild bunch” he recalls with a smile, “but great fun and superb sport”.
As a schoolboy, he had his first offshore experience with ICC members in the late 1930s when he was one of the delivery crew with Desmond Keating & Keith McFerran (first awardees in 1931 of the Faulkner Cup) and Donough O’Brien, sailing their newly–acquired Bermudan sloop Huzure back to Dublin from the Solent. Donough O’Brien was a relative of global circumnavigator Conor O’Brien, who was living aboard Saoirse in Falmouth following the death of his wife Kitty Clausen from leukaemia, and they called by to see him.
They found the great circumnavigator to be grieving, and living a very basic existence aboard Saoirse hauled out into the Falmouth boatyard. Jack’s memory of it is that O’Brien continued to be in his bare feet, as he always was when at sea or in the mountains, and in walking through the boatyard shed he would stop every so often to remove – without any comment - a copper tack which had gone into his heavily calloused skin.
It was an odd introduction, yet it does mean that Jack Wolfe is the last person alive to have been aboard Saoirse with O’Brien, albeit in a boatyard. But it what was to become a lifelong friendship with Tommy Cobbe of Newbridge House, located between the Malahide and Rogerstown Estuaries in Fingal, that resulted in his proper introduction to true cruising, which became a lifelong passion both in Tommy’s Albert Strange-style yawl Charm, and many other craft.
Tommy Cobbe’s gaff yawl Charm at Howth in 1945, with Jack Wolfe on the starboard deck. It was aboard Charm that he learned to continue sailing after his polio, while beyond is a Dublin Bay 21 – Jack co-owned Estelle of this class in Dun Laoghaire for two seasons
Tommy Cobbe’s gaff yawl Charm at Howth in 1945, with Jack Wolfe on the starboard deck. It was aboard Charm that he learned to continue sailing after his polio, while beyond is a Dublin Bay 21 – Jack co-owned Estelle of this class in Dun Laoghaire for two seasons
IMMACULATE BOAT MAINTENANCE
These included boats of Jack’s own that were noted for their immaculate maintenance. Much of this took place when he was raising a family in the somewhat eccentric Robbs Wall, an ancient extended tower house that had originally been built in mediaeval times to guard the south side of Malahide Estuary.
There, Jack’s land had some spare space – a part of it covered – which in winter he made available for laying up the varied craft of his many friends. And Jack himself being the life and soul of any party and a firm friend, it transformed the experience of getting boats ready for the coming season into regular festivities, with the closures of Easter being seen off by the acquisition of a keg of Guinness, and the lighting of an enormous fire in the ancient fireplace of the old castle itself.
Robbs Wall Castle formerly guarded the seaward approaches to Malahide. It was home to Jack and his family for many years, and at Easter his Fitting-out Parties in the big room on the middle floor were part of the entertainment. Photo: Facebook
POLIO AT TWENTY-ONE
This was all done despite the fact that he had been struck down – almost fatally - by polio at the age of 21. He survived to become, as he quipped himself, a one-legged sailor, and was a welcome shipmate in many craft, being a superb cook (though he never has carried an ounce of excess weight), a good-humoured bon viveur, and despite his disability, a really useful crew-member on coastal and offshore voyaging alike.
In the early days of learning to live with his new post-polio conditions, Tommy Cobbe was the most effective of the many friends who helped Jack in making the best (and then some) of his changed circumstances, though it did mean that a contemplated membership of the Irish Cruising Club in the late 1940s was not fulfilled until 1959 – today, that makes him one of the most senior members.
His zest for life, with a worldwide network of friends, remains undimmed. And when the extended family and many friends gather annually to celebrate his birthdays, he is now the only one who can read the menu without the aid of glasses. Though he no longer drives, with his disability-modified car it was until recently a joy to watch him display the skills of his youth in getting the vehicle into a tight parking space, largely through the confident and extremely accurate use of the rear-view mirrors.
AN ATERNATIVE VEW OF IRELAND FOR THE PAST HUNDRED YEARS
Listening to his entertaining stories about living – and living well – in Ireland during the last hundred years, you realise there is a lively and generous-minded alternative to the tales of woe which are often the accepted gloomy national narrative. But then, to enjoy being here and much involved in very many aspects of Irish life regardless of circumstances, you have to be Jack Wolfe. And he is unique.
Very Happy Birthday, Jack
A twinkle in the eye and a great zest for life – Jack Wolfe’s way of reaching a hundred. Photo: Wolfe family
