Throwing the Dart

New Zealand Tablet, 7 December 1911, Page 2475

Throwing the Dart

A ceremony of great antiquity, called Throwing the Dart,’ is performed every three years by the Lord Mayor of Cork, as Admiral of the Port and Harbor. It is done in assertion of a right conferred .by charter, as to the date of which’ history and the chroniclers are silent. Its origin also appears to be clouded in obscurity, but it is a time-honored custom, the observance of which has not been neglected for more than a century and a half by the occupant of the civic chair of Cork when the occasion for it has arisen. August is usually the month for the function, but this year it took place earlier in the summer. The ‘ Throwing of the Dart ’ is generally carried out in this way. The Lord Mayor proceeds by steamer to the mouth of the harbor, and on the limits of jurisdiction being reached, he throws the ‘Dart.’ The limit is an imaginary line drawn between Poor (Poer) Head and Cork Head. Attired in his robes of office, followed by a procession, the mayor proceeds to the steamer’s bow. Here he makes a speech suited to the occasion, and afterwards, mounting the vessel’s prow, he hurls the dart into the sea, asserting thereby his jurisdiction over the port and harbor between the two headlands named. The dart is described as a shaft made of mahogany, about two yards long, adorned with bronzed feathers, and furnished with a bronzed barbed head, weighed with shot, with the name of the celebrant. of the ceremony etched on its neck, and on the tips of the feathers are shamrocks, engraved with the Cork Arms.