Steve Mulkerrins has dreamt of building his own Galway hooker for as long as he can remember. He has always been a builder, from boat building to the successful condo development business that he built from the ground up in Chicago. When Steve became successful enough to bear the enormous financial cost of building an Irish boat out of imported Irish wood, he dove in head first. In an unheated and unairconditioned warehouse, Steve and a small crew of men spent three years building the St. Barbara. Breathtaking footage shows the boat as she begins to emerge from heaps of lumber. We see Steve, driven by obsession, as he spends night and day building the St. Barbara. Other tenants of the warehouse frequently drop by to investigate all the activity. No one is unmoved by what they see upon entering.

At the official christening of the boat, Mayor Daley and the General Counsel of Ireland look on as Steve, wearing a t-shirt chats casually with friends. The boat looks even more magnificent in the waters of Lake Michigan, which are calm and smooth in sharp contrast to what lies ahead for the St. Barbara.

In early May, 2006, Steve Mulkerrins will embark on his lifelong dream to sail his own Galway hooker across the Atlantic. The journey will carry the crew past landmarks in Irish history that will tug at their emotions. They will reverse the route of millions of Irish emigrants who fled their native country in search of a better life. The emotional challenges will be coupled with physical challenges. As stated before, Galway hookers are not intended for crossing oceans, and the men are taking serious risks with their journey. They will battle weather, icebergs and the harsh elements of the sea, the danger peaking as they fight gale force winds, and likely hurricane force storms in the final leg of their journey. The St. Barbara, which looked so majestic in the harbors of Lake Michigan, will undoubtedly look more like a toy boat as she is pushed about by the merciless North Atlantic.

This perilous trip will not go unnoticed. Mulkerrrins has become something of a folk hero in Galway. The crew will be greeted by a frenzy of Irish media. Thousands of people will come out to greet the crew – many on boats of their own. As the St. Barbara comes to port they will pass other boats, and a very large celebration will ensue. Perhaps the finest moment for Steve, will be sailing into view of his mother, who will be faithfully waiting on the pier for her son to return home, joined there by Steve’s wife and children.

“The Irish have been sailing west to America long enough. Now that we are able to, it’s time a few of us made the journey east,” says Patrick Joyce, skipper of the St. Barbara, when pressed about why he plans to make the treacherous journey across the North Atlantic next summer. No sooner has he delivered this observation, than he shrugs it off, cracks a joke and reignites his signature cigar with a wink. Pat, a native of the Aran Islands off the coast of County Galway, Ireland, is no stranger to rough seas. The sea was the backbone of the economy for the 1800 inhabitants of the three Irish speaking islands. Pat’s ancestors fished. His grandfather and uncle died at sea, as did, eventually, too many of his peers from grammar school. His father taught Pat and his five brothers to fish. Today, having left Ireland some 19 years ago to start a life in Chicago, Pat has never left the water for long. He has sailed since he arrived here, using his first earnings from humble beginnings to buy a second hand sailboat. As his plumbing business gained success (he jokes that he chose plumbing to stay near the water) Pat upgraded his boats and spent more and more time sailing.

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