Tod & Macgregor Shiplist

Notes:

         Fire Fly plied between Belfast and Ardrossan from 1845 to 1855, Like her consort Glow Worm she was a fast vessel. Fire Fly was originally registered at Glasgow, where the trustees of the Ardrossan Steam Navigation Company resided. For a short spell (November 1846 - August 1847) she was chartered to the Carlisle & Liverpool Steam Navigation Company and plied the Port Carlisle to Liverpool Route.

           In 1851 she was re-registered at Irvine in the names of Charles Gairdner, John Barr and the Earl of Eglington and others, still as trustees for the Ardrossan Steam Navigation Company.

          In 1855 she was purchased by the Bristol SN Co. In February 1857 the Fire Fly, then measuring 330 gross tons, was registered at Wexford for Richard and Robert Allen and, when purchased for £4,000 by the Bristol company a year later, retained this registry.

          After her purchase for the Wexford service, she was routed via Milford, and in 1859 the intermediate calls were at Tenby and Carmarthen, but in 1863 that latter was dropped.

          The only untoward incident reported during her local career was on 21st September 1859, when she was in collision with and sank the small Bristol tug Monkey at Sandbed Point, on the River Avon. Fire Fly plied between Bristol and Wexford until 1867, when she was replaced by the Briton. She was sold for breaking up in the same year.

[Irish Passenger Steamship Services, D.B. McNeill] [Railway & other Steamers, Duckworth & Legmuir] ¹[West Country Passenger Steamers, Farr]

          One ambitious undertaking was advertised at the Glasgow Fair holidays of 1850, no less than a single-day excursion to Ireland and back. On 13th July, the Fair Saturday, a train was despatched from Bridge Street Station at half past five in the morning for Ardrossan. There the Fire Fly, one of the fastest then running in the channel trade, was waiting to convey passengers to Belfast. The Fire Fly's fourteen-mile gait enabled the voyage to be completed by one o'clock. After spending a couple of hours in the Emerald Isle the excursionists re-embarked for the homeward journey, and a very full day's outing ended at Bridge Street Station about eleven o'clock. The single-day excursion was not repeated in subsequent years, but it stands out as an extraordinary feat, rendered possible only by the Fire Fly's exceptional speed and the ability and energy which characterised the management of the Ardrossan - Belfast route more than a century and a half ago.

[Echoes of Old Clyde Paddle-Wheels, Andrew McQueen]

          The Fire Fly obviously travelled to prove its speed. This is from R Bucknell's book: "Besides the Calais run there were bi-weekly services to Boulogne and to Ostende. The best sailing ships passages usually took 5½ hours and early steamers were not much faster, although they were more consistent. In 1850 a privately owned ship, the Fire Fly, crossed in three hours."

[Boat Trains & Channel Packets, R. Bucknall]