Taking a sail around County Cork, on Ireland’s green and steep-cliffed southwest coast, reveals similarities to the Maine coast: the rockweed, seals, lichens and mackerel are the same; the lobster traps, trawlers, salmon pens and mussel farms are familiar enough.
But who would’ve thought that on the Isle of Sherkin, pop. 130, would be found a St. George and Boothbay Harbor man, happily settled for life? Leon Minzy has spent a decade there with his Irish-born wife, Maggie. He and Maggie built a house, and he has a favorite spot in the congenial old pub called the Jolly Roger that serves as a hub of island life, a place families gather, men and women at ease with their pints of Guinness Stout. Minzy can stroll to the pub, or putt over in his skiff.
A former U.S. Coast Guardsman, Minzy captained the Lightship PORTLAND in the early 1970s. He said he loves Maine but it isn’t hard to fall for Ireland, too. It’s a quiet life, on an island that boasts a ruined abbey, the remains of a castle, a sandy beach and ferry service to Baltimore, a short distance away on the mainland. Sherkin is home to a marine research station, founded in 1975 by Matt and Eileen Murphy and still run by the family. It has grown to five labs, an aquarium, natural history museum, herbarium and library. Each November the Sherkin station, which is staffed by volunteer scientists, organizes an environmental conference in Ireland.
Now in his late 60s and retired, Minzy grew up in Tenants Harbor, where this writer spent childhood summers and remembers the Minzy family. They lived above Farmer’s Variety, a store with penny candy, groceries, dry goods and a lunch counter. It was the closest thing to a village pub in Tenants Harbor, minus the beer, which you could buy at Hall’s IGA Market. Minzy is friends with publican Geoff Stephens, who takes care of the old abbey historic site. When I met Stephens, he said Sherkin had a fellow Mainer, and I could find him at the pub.
Minzy’s former sister-in-law, teacher Jann Minzy of Waldoboro, said she admired him. “He has always aged well,” she said. When he lived a dozen years on a sailboat in the British Virgin Islands, he was “eligible bachelor number one,” judging by the number of women he got to know. He met Maggie, a native of Cork, in Tortola. Uncle Red, as his family calls him – he used to have a red beard – was in Waldoboro last year for the wedding of Jann Minzy’s daughter Elizabeth. Jann has remained close to the family.
Leon Minzy was awarded a gold life-saving medal in 1960 for helping to rescue five crew members of the fishing vessel ANDARTE, which had run aground at Ram Island in Casco Bay during a blinding snowstorm on Feb. 19 of that year. Minzy was assigned to the Cape Elizabeth Lifeboat Station, and he and others piloted a 36-foot motor lifeboat with a 15-foot rowing skiff in tow. Minzy rowed through rough surf to bring the stranded fishermen to safety, making two trips. The Coast Guard said “his determined efforts, despite great risk and personal danger, undoubtedly saved the lives of the men.” Winds were recorded at more than 50 miles an hour and the fishermen could have easily died from exposure on uninhabited Ram Island.
Minzy spent a number of years in Boothbay Harbor, and at one time worked for Maine Yankee. He piloted his own plane spotting fish. On Sherkin Island, there is no doctor, and residents consider the post office and school the key to survival of their community. Perhaps the pub plays a role, too.
Leon Minzy’s grandfather, of the same name, was a 26-year-old Coast Guardsman at the Burnt Island Lifesaving Station – long ago discontinued – off Port Clyde. He served 1912-1913.
Must run in the blood.