From IT to the high seas: Irish volunteer among crew of anti-whaling ship preparing for next mission

Belfast Telegraph

10-05-2025

The 24-year-old IT expert from Cork volunteers to combat whaling.
He is currently on board the MV John Paul DeJoria, a former Scottish fisheries patrol ship now owned by the Captain Paul Watson Foundation, which takes direct action against the slaughter of whales.
The ship is docked in Dublin for the next month and the public is invited along for tours to see what it takes to prepare for a mission and speak to crew members about their work.
Mr Kennedy speaks passionately about his involvement, which last year took him to the Faroe Islands to disrupt the annual 'grind', the traditional driving ashore of pods of whales to be killed for food and oil that is now carried out largely for amusement.
'I recorded 248 pilot whales killed in one session,' Mr Kennedy said.
'It's not fishing boats and harpoons any more. It's motorboats and jet-skis. The whales have no chance.'
'The meat is meant to be eaten but we saw a lot left behind. Some of the carcasses were barely touched. It took me a while to unpack all of that.'
The 'grind' is just one of the charity's concerns. Iceland, which once had a traditional domestic need for whale meat, is home to a large commercial whaling company that mainly supplies the Japanese market.
Its owner, multi-millionaire investor Kristjan Loftsson, announced recently that he would not be whaling this season because inflation had dampened Japanese demand, but he also talked of being back when consumer sentiment lifted.
'We don't always believe what he says,' Captain Locky MacLean, who is in charge of the John Paul DeJoria, said. 'So we're keeping an eye on things. It's only a few days' sailing to Iceland from Dublin so we can react fast.'
The big worry, however, is Japan. Since the country withdrew from the International Whaling Commission in 2018, it is no longer bound by the members' moratorium on whaling and it is ramping up its activities.
'There's a company part-owned by the Japanese government that has built a $50m factory ship that can hold fin and blue whales,' Capt MacLean said.
'The sides have roller door openings that the whales are slid through and then they roll shut like garage doors.
'There's nothing to get hold of and we can't get to the whales. Before, we'd throw stink bombs on deck to make the meat commercially unsaleable but we are going to have to think of other ways.'
The foundation has been tracking the Japanese all around the Antarctic and North Pacific on what it says are stock-taking assessments.
'They're looking for rarity and banking on extinction. The more rare the species, the greater the delicacy and the higher price they can charge,' Capt MacLean said.
It was on a trip to intercept a Japanese whaling ship in the north Atlantic after a stay in Ireland last summer that Captain Paul Watson, the head of the foundation, was arrested.
Stopping to refuel in Greenland, an Interpol notice initiated by Japan years earlier was activated by Denmark and he ended up imprisoned for five months while extradition proceedings began.
He was released suddenly three days before Christmas when Denmark dropped proceedings and is now in France awaiting final confirmation that he is off the Interpol list.
For Capt MacLean, the campaign has been a 25-year vocation. Others, such as Mr Kennedy and the rest of the multinational volunteer crew in Dublin, can only give a few weeks here and there, but all contributions are welcomed.
'I'm not a sailor – I only ever kayaked and canoed before – but I've learned so much being part of this,' Mr Kennedy said.
'I admire Paul Watson and the foundation for the directness of what they do.
'A lot of groups drum up awareness but this one goes directly to where the whales need them. I'll be in Faroe again this summer and I hope I can keep doing this as long as I can be of help.'