Wallace Clark

Who was Wallace Clark?

Henry Wallace Stuart Clark MBE was a sailor, author and businessman from Northern Ireland.

Clark was educated at Shrewsbury School and served in the Royal Navy Volunteer Reserve in World War II. He was an officer in the Ulster Special Constabulary and upon its dissolution became a major in the Ulster Defence Regiment serving until 1981. He was the elder brother of Henry Maitland Clark, MP for North Antrim from 1959 to 1970. He was appointed High Sheriff of County Londonderry for 1969.

He is best known for his writing and his sailing exploits. He began sailing at an early age, and from the late 1940s began to explore the waters near his family's ancestral home in Upperlands, County Londonderry. Basing himself in Portrush, County Antrim, he sailed along the north coast of Ireland, and in particular visited Rathlin Island, County Antrim and Inishowen, County Donegal, Republic of Ireland.

His cruises became more adventurous with experience, and his 1954 voyage round Ireland became the basis for his best-known book, Sailing Round Ireland, first published in 1976. In 1963 he was a leading light in the recreation of St Columba's voyage from Derry to Iona in a currach. Nearly thirty years later he was heavily involved in another major reconstruction journey, the Lord of the Isles Voyage, from Ireland to Scotland in Aileach, a wooden galley of the kind used in those waters in medieval times.