Ouzel Galley - The Ouzel Galley Society

The Ouzel Galley Society

In 1705 the panel of merchants which had arbitrated in the case of the Ouzel Galley was formally established as a permanent arbitration body to deal with similar shipping disputes that might arise. It was hoped that the new body could resolve such disputes without having recourse to the courts, which would have resulted in excessive legal fees. Not only did the Ouzel Galley Society take its name from the famous vessel, but its membership was also regulated to match that ship’s complement of forty men. The society’s members bore naval titles such as captain, coxswain, boatswain, etc., and were expected to pay an annual subscription for the upkeep of the society; fees charged for the society’s arbitration work were donated to various worthy causes.

The members were generally drawn from among the city’s most eminent politicians and businessmen - among them Arthur Guinness and John Jameson. For much of the eighteenth century the society met in public houses - “the Rose and Bottle or Phoenix Tavern or Power’s Inn or Jude’s Hotel”, as James Joyce recounts in Finnegans Wake.

In 1783 the society was partially subsumed by the newly formed Dublin Chamber of Commerce, whose meetings generally took place in the Commercial Buildings on College Green. A stone plaque commemorating the society can still be seen above the doorway of No. 10, next door to the no longer extant Commercial Buildings. The Ouzel Galley Society was eventually wound up in 1888.

Precisely one century later, however, during Dublin’s “millennium” celebrations in 1988, the Ouzel Galley Society was reconstituted, primarily as a charitable institution. The membership now comprises former presidents of the chamber of commerce and others who are deemed to have “made a significant contribution to the economy of the capital”. In 2005 Mary Finan was elected as the society’s first female captain.