The Irish Alder

The third Estonian flag vessel chartered by Irish Shipping Limited was the Piret, a ship of 4,200 tons deadweight, which was delivered to the company on 12th January, 1942. The charterparty provided for a lump sum payment of £7,500 and monthly payments of £945. This ship was remarkable for the fact that, under the name Reine Elisabeth, she had been sunk while at a Baltic Sea port, during the First World War in 1918. The entry for the ship in Lloyd's Register for 1919/20 records her as being sunk and a total war loss and in the register for 1923/24 she reappeared under the same name. She was built in 1902 by John Cockerill of Hoboken and was originally named Princesse Elisabeth and her first owner was the John Cockerill Shipowning Company. The ship passed into Belgian ownership before being sold to Tallinn Shipping Co. Ltd. of Estonia in 1932 when her name was changed to Piret.

As might be expected, the Piret, renamed Irish Alder ( Pictured above ), was badly in need of major repairs when taken over by the company in January, 1942, and she went into Liffey Dockyard in Dublin in mid-February, 1942. She spent almost two years undergoing repairs and did not leave the dockyard until January, 1944, when she sailed for Port Talbot and loaded 2,500 tons of coal at the Welsh port. After loading her cargo, she underwent further minor repairs and arrived at her Irish discharge port of Cork on 6th February, 1944. However, on completing discharge, she was forced to enter Rushbrooke Dockyard for still further repairs from 8th to 17th February and sailed the following day for St. John, New Brunswick to load wheat and general cargo for Cork. She arrived back there on 14th April, 1944. The Irish Alder then made two cross-channel voyages to Preston for coal cargoes that were discharged at the company's Cork bunkering depot. She then made another voyage to St. John for wheat and general cargo. She made five further voyages to St. John before the war ended.

Capt. James J. Clarke of Belfast was Master of the Irish Alder during her wartime service and other well-known company Officers who served on the vessel during those years were Captains P.F. O Seaghdha, John H. Syms and Richard H. Greene of Wexford. Colm Lawlesss, who was later Harbour Master at Dublin for many years, and Patrick Mangan, both of whom were prominent with the company in the post-war era, signed on the Irish Alder as Cadets on 23rd June, 1945, for her first post-war voyage to load wheat and general cargo at Montreal for Limerick.

The Irish Alder was handed back to her Estonian owners, Tallinn Shipping Co., on 7th August, 1946, and was renamed Trebol. Her Estonian crew of twenty-two men and three women joined the vessel at Cork and sailed from that port under the Panamanian flag. In 1952 she was scrapped at Blyth.