Eilean Croine returns to Castletown after three-month fishing voyage

The newest addition to the fleet the Eilean Croine arrived in Castletownbere this summer and has just returned from a three-month fishing trip off Spain, writes Martin Claffey

THE newest addition to the Castletownbere fishing fleet has just returned from its maiden voyage after three months at sea.

The Eilean Croine, owned by fisherman Eric Murphy, was officially launched in June, the third boat to the carry the Eilean Croine moniker.

Fishing is in the blood for Eric. ‘My father was a fisherman, and my grandfather, and maybe even further back,’ he said.

‘You’d be in the water before you could walk! I started fishing with my father full-time when I was 15 years old, and before that I’d have been fishing during the summer holidays, hauling pots with my father.’

Having started out his career as crew aboard his father’s vessel The Menhaden, Eric knew where his future lay.

‘There was nothing else I wanted to do, or no other job for me. So I bought my own boat when I was 22 years old. I’d say it cost around €250,000,’ he said. ‘It was a huge amount of money and only for the backing of my parents, it wouldn’t have happened, and help getting started.’

Eric’s first boat was called Rising Tempo, a 22m trawler. ‘She was named after a horse, and I’d say the horse is still running,’ laughs Eric.

‘You had to give five or six names to the Department and then they’d agree one. My mother found the name it, it was a horse so we put that down as one of the six. We gave better ones but that was the one they chose.’

The Rising Tempo served Eric from 1992 until 1998, when he purchased his next boat, the Eilean Croine. The name came from an island off Donegal, where it had first been fishing and it was the Oilean Croine, before a Scottish fisherman purchased it and used it in the Hebrides, where the name was changed to Scots Gaelic, and became Eilean Croine. The name stuck.

The first Eilean Croine was 37m, and Eric fished with this boat until 2003, when the second Eilean Croine came into service.

And in recent years, Eric’s son joined his crew, and he was looking to the future. ‘We started doing the paperwork for this boat back in 2018 – that was before Brexit, and we lost a lot of quota. Maybe we wouldn’t have taken this decision back then.

‘The easy option would have been not to buy a new boat. But my son is fishing with us now, and he’s 24, and our ambition always was that you’d like a new boat to carry on.’

And so the new boat hull was built in Poland during Covid. ‘Covid meant we couldn’t even see the hull over there,’ recalls Eric. The empty shell of the boat then arrived in Killybegs to be fitted out by Mooney Boats to Eric’s design requirements.

Eric on the bridge of the Eilean Croine. (Photo: Anne Marie Cronin)

However, there was to be another spanner in the works, in May 2023, when a fire broke out on the vessel in Killybegs, sending her back to be repaired and readied.

Finally in June this year, the Eilean Croine arrived in Castletownbere, where the new boat sent a frisson of excitement, and optimism, through the fishing community. It was a proud moment for Eric, and his wife Amanda, and ‘It was fantastic, there was a great crowd there wishing us well,’ said Eric.

The Eilean Croine was joined by her sister ship, the Sparkling Star, owned by Donal O’Neill and his sons Alan and Kieran, and a flotilla which included The Menhaden – the same boat which Eric began on with his father.

The relationship between the Eilean Croine and Donal and the Sparkling Star, is extremely close. ‘We’ve been pair fishing together since 1999,’ said Eric, with the two fishing crews doing all their fishing together, casting a net between the boats to earn their catch.’

Fishing has changed since Eric’s first days at sea. ‘When I first started fishing, it was for a bit of pelagic and some whitefish. Then in the first Eilean Croine we got more into pelagic and less whitefish. The second Eilean Croine was all pelagic fishing and hopefully this one will be as well.

‘Fishing has changed a lot. The numbers working in fishing is nothing like it was before either. But my crew I have one guy from Schull, one from Donegal, and the rest are Castletown. But most of the crews would be from abroad now.

‘The price of fish is coming up but the quota you get is less, and there are so many rules and regulations governing everything now. But you would have had to spend a lot more time at sea before, six days a week, now you have more time at home.’

There should be more time at home overall, but the Eilean Croine was not long in Castletownbere when she took off for a three-month fishing trip from which she only returned last week.

‘We were fishing off the northern coast of Spain. We’d be fishing for about a week to 10 days, then we’d land our catch in the port of Ondarroa, close to the French border. It makes more sense to land there because it’s closer to the markets, rather than going back to Castletownbere for it only to be going back to Spain again. We’d only be in the port for about six hours and then we’d be gone again.’

The returned at the end of August, after three months. There’s a short rest before they return to the ocean.

‘We’re going out at the start of September for one day’s fishing for herring, and then that quota is gone. Then we’ll be fishing for redfish for a week. And then we’re limited until Christmas. The new quotas come out on January 1st, so we’d be hoping for better than last year.’