Two Aran island fishing vessels which were approved for Ireland’s decommissioning scheme, recently completed their last trip before being broken up.

The 17-metre Connacht Ranger and the 20-metre Conquest were photographed on their journey from Ireland to Denmark.

Skipper-owner John Conneely, from the Aran island of Inis Mór, opted to take the vessels to Denmark for scrapping.

“Beautiful but poignant images of MFV Connacht Ranger and Conquest waiting to go up Neptune’s Staircase on the Caledonian Canal en route to Denmark for decommissioning. A stairway to heaven of sorts for two boats whose time is sadly up,” read a post on Twitter by Conneely’s partner, Mary-Frances Beatty.

Both vessels arrived in Denmark on June 11th after a seven-day voyage.

The Connacht Ranger fishing vessel crossing the North Sea on its final voyage to Denmark Photo: John Conneely

“ The trip through Scotland added a nice silver lining to an otherwise difficult journey,” Beatty said.

Formalities were completed on June 12th, and the automatic identification systems for both vessels were then turned off the following day.

“John said goodbye with a heavy heart to the Connacht Ranger in particular.

He just kept her wheel and anchor,” Beatty said.

“The industry is just too hard to survive in nowadays,” she said. She has worked in the State and private sector and says she has “never encountered anything like the complexity of running a fishing business”.

The Connacht Ranger and Conquest in the Caledonian Canal en route to Denmark for scrapping Photo: John Conneely

The 17-metre Connacht Ranger has been in the Conneely family for over half a century. It was one of a fleet of timber boats built at boatyards and then run by Ireland’s sea fisheries board, Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM).

John Conneely, who is a fourth-generation skipper, took up fishing with his father, Gregory, and sister Clíona at the age of 16. The late Gregory Conneely was something of a legend, having survived a serious deck injury at an early stage in his career.

Back in 1968, Gregory was at home on Inis Mór with his wife, Maggie - who was about to deliver their first child - when he had a premonition that something was wrong. His first vessel, the Ard Aengus, had run up on rocks.

Gregory launched his brother’s boat, the Ard Colum, with several young fit men from the island.

In a terrific feat of seamanship, they saved the crew from the Ard Aengus before the vessel broke up in heavy seas.

John Conneely was 21 when he became skipper in 1998. He loved the career at sea, but after the family’s vessel Maggie C was arrested back in 2006, his father Gregory advised him to “get out”, having seen how difficult it was to operate within the Common Fisheries Policy (CFP).

The case took almost ten years to be heard, and in May 2015, Conneely was acquitted of breaching EU fishing regulations.

He continued in fishing, but loss of access to British waters after it withdrew from the EU was a final hammer blow. The couple decided to apply for the Irish government decommissioning scheme, feeling they had no choice with so little quota.

“I would not like my young son Gregory to go into this industry, as I don’t see a viable future,” Conneely has said.