The Ouzel Galley Society

The Ouzel Galley was an Irish merchant ship that set sail from Dublin in the late seventeenth century and was presumed lost with all hands when she failed to return within the next three years; after a further two years had elapsed, however, she mysteriously reappeared with her full complement of crew and a valuable cargo of spices, exotic goods and, it is said, piratical spoils. The ship has entered Irish folklore, and her unexplained disappearance and unexpected reappearance is still the subject of a number of conspiracy theories.

The facts, so far as they can be ascertained, are quite straightforward. In the autumn of 1695 a merchant galley called the Ouzel sailed out of Ringsend in Dublin under the command of Capt Eoghan Massey of Waterford . Her destination, it was supposed at the time, was the port of Smyrna in the Ottoman Empire (now Izmir in Turkey), where the vessel's owners - the Dublin shipping company of Ferris, Twigg & Cash - intended her to engage in a trading mission before returning to Dublin the following year. The Ouzel, however, did not return as scheduled; nor was she seen the year after that. When a third year passed without any sign of her or her crew, it was generally assumed by the people of Dublin that she had been lost at sea with all hands.

In 1698 a panel comprising the city's most eminent merchants was set up to settle the question of insurance. The panel's ruling was that the ship had indeed been lost and that its owners and insurers should receive their due compensation. The galley's complement of thirty-seven crew and three officers were declared dead and the insurance was paid out.

Two years later, however, in the autumn of 1700, the Ouzel made her unexpected reappearance, sailing up the River Liffey to scenes of both disbelief and wild jubilation. Capt Massey later described how the ship had fallen victim to Algerian corsairs on its outward journey. The crew was taken to North Africa , where they were forced to man the ship while their new masters engaged in acts of piracy against merchant vessels returning from the Caribbean or plying the lucrative Mediterranean shipping lanes. After five years of captivity, however, Capt Massey and his men took advantage of a drunken carousal to free themselves and retake the Ouzel, which they then promptly sailed back to Dublin , its hold still full of the pirates' booty.

Whatever the truth of the matter, the ownership of the Ouzel's cargo became a matter of dispute. As plunder, it could not be legally divided amongst the crew. The arbitration body which had settled the question of insurance in 1698 was reconvened to inquire into the matter. Later accounts recall how the panel decided that all monies remaining after the ship's owners and insurers had been properly compensated should be set aside as a fund for the alleviation of poverty among Dublin 's "decayed merchants".

The Ouzel Galley Society:

In 1705 the panel of merchants which had arbitrated in the case of the Ouzel Galley was formally established as a permanent arbitration body to deal with similar shipping disputes that might arise. It was hoped that the new body could resolve such disputes without having recourse to the courts, which would have resulted in excessive legal fees. Not only did the Ouzel Galley Society take its name from the famous vessel, but its membership was also regulated to match that ship's complement of forty men. The society's members bore naval titles such as captain, coxswain, boatswain, etc, and were expected to pay an annual subscription for the upkeep of the society; fees charged for the society's arbitration work were donated to various worthy causes.

The members were generally drawn from among the city's most eminent politicians and businessmen - among them Arthur Guinness and John Jameson. For much of the eighteenth century the society met in public houses.

In 1783 the society was partially subsumed by the newly formed Dublin Chamber of Commerce, whose meetings generally took place in the Commercial Buildings on College Green. A stone plaque commemorating the society can still be seen above the doorway of No. 10, next door to the no longer extant Commercial Buildings. The Ouzel Galley Society was eventually wound up in 1888.

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