Her early days, under Captain Robert Jones, were spent in the South American trade running from Runcorn to Gibraltar and on to the Rio Grande, docking at the Brazilian port of Porto Alegre.

In the main, all of these ships engaged in the Spanish wine trade until Detlef Wagner was sunk[14] by UC-72 on 28 May 1917[15] Three Arklow schooners were requisitioned by the Admiralty to be used as Q-ships, they were: Cymric, Gaelic and Mary B Mitchell.

The expectation was that the U-boat would approach the apparently abandoned ship and would be surprised and sunk when the guns were revealed and opened fire.

After the war, it was concluded that Q-ships were greatly over-rated, diverting skilled seamen from other duties without sinking enough U-boats to justify the strategy.

On 15 October 1918, HMS J6, a J-class submarine, was on the surface outside her base, Blythe, when she was spotted by Cymric which mistook her 'J6' marking for 'U6'.

Cymric had a new career: transporting malt from ports such as Ballinacurra, New Ross and Wexford to Dublin.

Details differ, including the date, which varies from 12 February 1927[13] or 1928[25] to 21 December 1943[26] Research by Dr Edward Bourke established that there were two separate incidents: on Tuesday 29 November 1921, Cymric did, indeed, collide with a tram.

On 22 August 1922, Cymric struck the Brandy Rocks and was beached at Kilmore, County Wexford.

[28][29] Cymric was witness to a sad event that would change the way lighthouses and lightships are administered in Ireland.

[citation needed] The general lighthouse authority for Ireland, the Commissioners of Irish Lights, had removed a lightship from the Arklow Bank and replaced it with an unlit buoy.

[30] At the time, the Commissioners of Irish Lights, which was an all-island body, continued to report to the UK Board of Trade.

She spent five days aground and was eventually refloated with the aid of a diver and the removal of some barrels of malt from her cargo.

At the outbreak of World War II, there were only 56 ships on the Irish register; 14 of those were Arklow schooners.

In November 1939, Roosevelt signed the Fourth Neutrality Act forbidding American ships from entering the "war zone",[34] which was defined as a line drawn from Spain to Iceland.

[37] In Lisbon, Cymric loaded the awaiting American cargo and brought it back to Ireland.

On what was to be her final voyage, on 23 February 1944, she left Ardrossan in Scotland, where she loaded a cargo of coal for Lisbon.

On the third Sunday of every November, those who lost their lives on neutral Irish ships, including the Cymric, are remembered.