Publications | Down Survey | 2002 Issue Contents

James Coree, Ardglass harbour master
James Coree

The Coree family originally came from Co Clare, where my great-grandfather Daniel Coree was born about the year 1800 in the village of Ballycoree. His father and only brother were drowned in a boating accident on the River Shannon, so he was left as the only person with that surname (inherited from French Huguenots who had settled there). He must have joined the Royal Marines or the Revenue Service (shore) and was stationed on Scattery Island on the Shannon. He married my great-grandmother Catherine about 1827/28 and his first four sons were born on the island. He then joined the Revenue Coast Guard Service, and after passing his medical and other tests was posted to the Coast Guard Station at Bangor, Donaghadee District, Co Down in February 1838 as a boatman. Shortly afterwards he was transferred to Portaferry, Co Down where his daughter Margaret Ann was born in November 1839. A second daughter, Catherine, was also born there. In November 1844 he was promoted to the position of commissioned boatman and transferred to Killard, Co Down, where my grandfather James Coree was born in June 1846. He had two further children before 1854 and died in Killard in 1870.

My grandfather, James Coree joined the Coast Guard Service in 1864. At that time the Service was part of the Royal Navy. He served on various ships (never on a shore posting) and, after rising through the ranks, he was commissioned in 1880, becoming Chief Officer in Command of HMS Flora in April 1886. He married in the same year, Margaret, the daughter of James Donovan RN, who was also a Chief Officer. In 1888 he was appointed Chief Officer of the Rupert, and his letter of appointment still survives. My father, Daniel, and his three sisters, Kathleen, Margaret and Ethel, were born in Kingstown, now Dun Laoghaire. My grandmother Margaret died in childbirth in March 1895 at the early age of 29. My grandfather stayed on in Dun Laoghaire for a short time and then went to Ardglass, where his sister and other relatives lived. His sister Margaret Ann married Jack Sharvin, who had a bar and store in Strangford, where the Cuan Restaurant is now located. Jack died in 1916 and Margaret Ann outlived him until January 1929.

Photograph of James Coree, 1884 (Courtesy of James Coree)

I was told by my father that my grandfather James became harbour master in Ardglass. He was known as Captain Coree but in the family was addressed as Pa Coree. That an old telescope survives in Ardglass and is still used by the present harbour master, John Smyth, strikes a chord when I remember my father telling me that Pa Coree hardly left the house in Ardglass without his telescope (a little like other people who carried a walking stick). My father is pictured holding his telescope behind his back in one of WA Green's photographs of Ardglass in the herring season, taken in about 1914. The telescope still used by John Smyth looks very like the one my grandfather is holding in the picture, and I like to think that it was used by James Coree a hundred years ago.

Letter of appointment of James Coree as Chief officer of the Rupert, 1888 (Courtesy of James Coree)

My father, Daniel Coree, was brought up by his grandparents Captain and Mrs Donovan in Dingle, Co Kerry, until their retirement from the Coast Guard Service, when they went to live in Dun Laoghaire. My father served an engineering apprenticeship with Parsons of Dublin before going to work for Beardmore's in Glasgow, where he joined the Clyde division of RNVR. He then spent three years on the construction of the Panama Canal. On the outbreak of the First World , War he returned and served as an engineer officer in RNVR. During the War he was torpedoed three times on various ships but survived with only facial injuries. He returned to Ardglass for a short while and was present when his father James Coree died in March 1919. My father and his sisters left Ardglass shortly afterwards and went their different ways . . . but that is another story.

This photograph taken at Ardglass in the autumn of 1918 shows from left: James Coree, unknown lady in black; front: James' daughter Margaret, unknown man, James' daughter Kathleen; rear: James' son Daniel and Christina Cusack, his future wife (Courtesy of James Coree)

Regarding the family name 'Coree', it is an old Huguenot name, a corruption of 'de la Coree'. How the family got to Co Clare I have not been able to find out, but like good survivalists we probably got out of France one jump ahead of the axe. The name has often been confused with 'Curry' which is common both in Co Clare and Co Down, but most common in Co Antrim. In fact, my great-grandmother was registered as 'Catherine Curry' on her death certificate, as the registrar did not ask how the name was spelt. Also, my grandfather's brother, John, was listed as John Curry, when he enlisted in the Coast Guard Service. In my time, I have endured incorrect spellings such as Corrie, Cory, Corie and Currie. I spent 20 years in the Colonial Service, and in Sierra Leone and Aden I have regularly been called 'Khoury'. This will indicate the trouble I have had in tracing the family history. If it was not for the fact that I have almost complete documentation for James Coree in the Coast Guard Service, his father's letter of appointment to the Revenue Coast Guard Service and a cousin, Maureen Reynolds, living in Dublin who spent some time with the Corees and the Sharvins in Ardglass in the period 1916-1920, I would have been at a complete loss. I hope that this excerpt from the Coree family history, and particularly the few facts concerning James Coree, harbour master in Ardglass, will be of local interest. It is still possible to see his gravestone in Kilclief Churchyard, where he is buried with his father and mother.

Gravestone of James Coree at Kilclief Churchyard (Courtesy of James Coree)

John Smyth, current harbour master in Ardglass still uses James Coree's telescope to scan the horizon for vessels (photograph by Fiona Clarke, 2002)

James Coree is a retired chartered engineer who has researched the history of the Coree family and now lives in Goring by Sea, Worthing, West Sussex.