Waterford Harbour Tides & Tales

As we enter another bank holiday weekend in lockdown, David Carroll has put together this maritime history quiz of the SE area to give you a bit of a distraction. The questions have a maritime/historical basis and any of my regular blog readers will have a good understanding of them already. But for others it’s multiple choice so a one in three chance of being right. David will post the answers here on Monday. So hope you enjoy it.

1. Ballyhack Castle is thought to have been built c 1450 by which great military order? A: Knights Hospitallers of St John, B: Knights Templars or C: Teutonic Knights
2. Dollar Bay acquired its name from a cargo of 250 sacks of Spanish milled gold dollars, ingots and gold dust that were buried there by pirates in 1765. The ship from which it was stolen had departed from Tenerife, in the Canaries, for passage to London.
   The ship was called? A: Earl of Wessex, B: Earl of Sandwich or C: Earl of Pembroke
3. “At Geneva Barracks that young man died
   And at Passage they have his body laid
   Good people who live in peace and joy
   Breathe a prayer, shed a tear for the Croppy Boy”
   Originally built to accommodate Swiss artisans, valued for their knowledge and skills, who were fleeing that country. A site was acquired for their anticipated arrival and was named New Geneva, after the country of origin of the new settlers. The Government believed that such body of skilled merchants would give impetus to trade and commerce in Waterford city and the nation. The experiment, however, failed and the building was subsequently used for military purposes, including the infamy of 1798.
   A famous architect was commissioned to draw up plans for the original town. Was it? A: John Roberts, B: James Gandon or C: Richard Cassells
4. A saint is said to have to have come to the Hook from Wales in 452 AD and established a monastery on the site of the lighthouse. He is said to have lit the first warning beacon for ships shortly after his arrival. The beacon was maintained by the monks for seven hundred years until the lighthouse was built.
   What was he called? A: Dewi, B: Dyfrig or C: Dubhán
5. What was the surname of the Arthur who built Dunbrody Park and the village of Arthurstown in the first quarter of the 1800s and provided the village with its name?
   Was it? A: Chichester, B: Rochester or C: Winchester
6. Legend has it that the fleet of King Henry II, arriving in October 1171, numbered 600 ships and one of the merchants who donated to the flotilla was a Bristol merchant. He was handsomely rewarded with the granting of 7,000 acres of land centred in Faithlegg. This family ruled the area for five hundred years until they were dispossessed in 1649 by the armies of Oliver Cromwell.
   What was this family called? A: Aylward, B: Power or C: Devereux
7. Duncannon Fort as it is to-day mostly dates from 1588, when it was constructed on a promontory in Waterford Harbour as a defence against an expected attack from the Spanish Armada. In 1645, Duncannon Fort was in control of Parliamentary Forces and Cromwell sent four ships to relieve the fort. The Confederates, who were besieging the fort, attacked the ships. Three of the ships managed to get away but the flagship was caught up in bad currents and tide and could not move. She came under heavy fire which broke her masts. She drifted out into the main channel where she sank on January 26th, 1645.
   The ship was called? A: Great Britain, B: Great Lewis or C: Great Eastern
8. “Of shipwrecks and disasters we’ve read and seen a deal
   But now the coast of Wexford must tell a dreadful tale
   On the 4th day of January the wind in a gale did blow
   And four and twenty hands were lost of the Alfred D. Snow
   From the port of San Francisco she sailed across the main
   Bound for the port of Liverpool her cargo it was grain
   On a happy day she sailed away to cross the stormy foam
   There’s not a soul alive today to bring the tidings home.”
   The Snow was lost on the 4th of January in year? A: 1888, B: 1878 or C: 1898
9. In the 1650s, the Loftus family, who were English Planters as part of the Cromwellian conquest were given what we now call Loftus Hall. What was the Hall called prior to that time?
   Was it? A: Hook Hall, B: Redmond Hallor C: Ely Hall
10. In 1814, Dunmore was a small fishing village nestling in a sheltered cove, when it was chosen by the Post Office to be the Irish terminal of a new Mail Packet route from Milford Haven. The Post Office engaged an Engineer, called Alexander Nimmo, to design and build the new harbour.
    Where was Nimmo born? A: Wales, B: England or C: Scotland
11. According to local tradition, a track steeped in legend runs from the ‘Forty Steps’ at Creadan Head to Fornaght beach and from there on over Knockavelish to Harristown Hill where a late Neolithic passage grave crowns the hilltop.
    One popular interpretation makes it a slave route or possibly likely to be a smugglers route or even a ceremonial route linking Creadan Head to the Harristown passage grave.
    What is the track called? A: Bóithrín na mBan Gorm, B: Bóithrín na mBan Buí or C: Bóithrín na mBan Bán
12. Having served as a major in the Royal Marines during the Second World War, Major Cholmeley-Harrison moved to Ireland in 1945 and bought Woodstown House, a Regency villa. It was previously the home of Lady Carew, who had been at the Duchess of Richmond’s celebrated ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo and lived until 1903.
    In the summer of what year did Cholmeley-Harrison rent Woodstown to Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the assassinated US president?
    Was it: A: 1965, B: 1967 or C: 1969
13. On August 23, 1170, ‘Strongbow’ landed at Passage with at least 200 knights and 1,000 soldiers.
    What was Strongbow’s real name? Was it? A: Raymond Fitzgerald, B: Miles De Cogan or C: Richard De Clare
14. In what year was the Barrow Bridge opened to connect Waterford to the newly developed port of Rosslare by rail?
    Stretching from Co Kilkenny to Co Wexford, where the Suir, Barrow and Nore meet, it is 2,131 feet in length and up to the 1990s was the longest railway viaduct in the country.
    Was it? A: 1896, B: 1906 or C: 1916

And so for the answers via David Carroll. Over to you David:

Q	Answer
1	A: Knights Hospitallers of St John
2	B: Earl of Sandwich
3	B: James Gandon
4	C: Dubhán
5	A:  Chichester
6	A: Aylward
7	B: Great Lewis
8	A: 1888
9	B: Redmond Hall
10	C: Scotland
11	A: Bóithrín na mBan Gorm
12	B: 1967
13	C: Richard De Clare
14	B: 1906

Thank you to everyone who took part in the quiz.  I hope that you found it interesting and that it helped pass some time during these unusual times.

Thank you for all the comments that were posted.

I hope that many of you learned something new about the wonderful heritage and history of Waterford Harbour that Andrew brings to is each day through his social media platforms.

For anyone new, perhaps, to ‘Waterford Harbour’, I hope you interest has been whetted and that you curiosity will encourage to read and research more into the wonderful heritage and history that we are privileged to enjoy.

1. Ballyhack Castle is thought to have been built c 1450 by which great military order?

        A: Knights Hospitallers of St John

“Ballyhack Castle is a large tower house thought to have been built c. 1450 by the Knights Hospitallers of St. John, one of the two great military orders founded at the beginning of the 12th century at the time of the Crusades.”

https://www.discoverireland.ie/Arts-Culture-Heritage/ballyhack-castle/442

• Dollar Bay acquired its name from a cargo of 250 sacks of Spanish milled gold dollars, ingots and gold dust that were buried there by pirates in 1765. The ship from which it was stolen had departed from Tenerife, in the Canaries, for passage to London.

                                        B: Earl of Sandwich

http://tramoreshippwrecks.blogspot.com/2015/09/the-earl-of-sandwich-30-november-1765.html

• “At Geneva Barracks that young man died
  And at Passage they have his body laid
  Good people who live in peace and joy
  Breathe a prayer, shed a tear for the Croppy Boy”

Originally built to accommodate Swiss artisans, valued for their knowledge and skills, who were fleeing that country. A site was acquired for their anticipated arrival and was named New Geneva, after the country of origin of the new settlers. The Government believed that such body of skilled merchants would give impetus to trade and commerce in Waterford city and the nation. The experiment, however, failed and the building was subsequently used for military purposes, including the infamy of 1798.

A famous architect was commissioned to draw up plans for the original town.

                                        B: James Gandon

“New Geneva Barracks was identified as the proposed site for a planned colony for artisan and intellectual Genevan settlers, who had become refugees following a failed rebellion against a French and Swiss government in the city. Ireland had been granted a parliament separate from London in 1782 and it was thought that the creation of the colony would stimulate new economic trade with the continent. James Gandon, who designed the Custom House, was commissioned to create a masterplan for the site overlooking the Waterford Estuary. The plans for the colony eventually collapsed, however, when the Genevans insisted that they should be represented in the Irish parliament but govern themselves under their own Genevan laws. It then became a barracks following the United Irishmen Rebellion in 1798.”                 

https://www.antaisce.org/buildingsatrisk/new-geneva-barracks-passage-east

Recalling Geneva Barracks

Watch Catherine Foley read from her book:

• A saint is said to have to have come to the Hook from Wales in 452 AD and established a monastery on the site of the lighthouse. He is said to have lit the first warning beacon for ships shortly after his arrival. The beacon was maintained by the monks for seven hundred years until the lighthouse was built.

                                                C: Dubhán

“Saint Dubhán is said to have lit the first warning beacon for ships at Hook Head shortly after his arrival. This beacon was maintained by the monks for 700 years until the lighthouse was built.

Saint Dubhán built a church and soon the whole peninsula was known as Rinn Dubháin. The name Dubhán can be translated into English as a ‘fishing hook’ and so, it is said, the peninsula became known as Hook Head.”

http://www.patrickcomerford.com/2019/03/saint-dubhan-and-hook-church-are-part.html

• What was the surname of the Arthur who built Dunbrody Park and the village of Arthurstown in the first quarter of the 1800s and provided the village with its name?

         A:  Chichester

“During the first quarter of the 1800s, Arthur Chichester built the estate village of Arthurstown on the Dundrody estate which became a focal point for the surrounding areas. The village had a hospital, a coast guard station, a police barracks and a courthouse. The pier in Arthurstown was built in 1829.”

History

• Legend has it that the fleet of King Henry II, arriving in October 1171, numbered 600 ships and one of the merchants who donated to the flotilla was a Bristol merchant.  He was handsomely rewarded with the granting of 7,000 acres of land centred in Faithlegg. This family ruled the area for five hundred years until they were dispossessed in 1649 by the armies of Oliver Cromwell. 

                             A: Aylward

“A Norman named Strongbow landed in the harbour in 1170 and this was followed by the arrival of Henry II in October 1171.  Legend has it that Henry’s fleet numbered 600 ships and one of the merchants who donated to the flotilla was a Bristol merchant named Aylward.  He was handsomely rewarded with the granting of 7000 acres of land centred in Faithlegg. The family lived originally in a Motte and Baily enclosure the remains of which is still to be seen.  This was followed by Faithlegg Castle and the 13^th century church in the grounds of the present Faithlegg church dates from their era too. The family ruled the area for 500 years until they were dispossessed in 1649 by the armies of Oliver Cromwell.  The property was subsequently granted to a Cromwellian solider, Captain William Bolton.”                            

https://www.faithlegg.com/history-of-faithlegg.html

• Duncannon Fort as it is to-day mostly dates from 1588, when it was constructed on a promontory in Waterford Harbour as a defence against an expected attack from the Spanish Armada.

In 1645, Duncannon Fort was in control of Parliamentary Forces and Cromwell sent four ships to relieve the fort.  The Confederates, who were besieging the fort, attacked the ships.  Three of the ships managed to get away but the flagship was caught up in bad currents and tide and could not move.  She came under heavy fire which broke her masts.  She drifted out into the main channel where she sank on January 26^th, 1645.

                                    B: Great Lewis

    https://russianside.blogspot.com/2018/05/duncannon-siege.html                             http://www.waterfordinyourpocket.com/the-great-lewis/

• “Of shipwrecks and disasters we’ve read and seen a deal
  But now the coast of Wexford must tell a dreadful tale
  On the 4th day of January the wind in a gale did blow
  And four and twenty hands were lost of the Alfred D. Snow

From the port of San Francisco she sailed across the main
Bound for the port of Liverpool her cargo it was grain
On a happy day she sailed away to cross the stormy foam
There’s not a soul alive today to bring the tidings home.”

        The Alfred D Snow was lost on the 4^th of January in what year?

                                        A: 1888

Alfred D Snow – Prelude to a disaster

• In the 1650s, the Loftus family, who were English Planters as part of the Cromwellian conquest were given what we now call Loftus Hall. What was the Hall called prior to that time?

                                        B: Redmond Hall

https://www.loftushall.ie/about

1. In 1814, Dunmore was a small fishing village nestling in a sheltered cove, when it was chosen by the Post Office to be the Irish terminal of a new Mail Packet route from Milford Haven. The Post Office engaged an Engineer, called Alexander Nimmo, to design and build the new harbour.

Where was Nimmo born?

                                       C: Scotland

A fit Situation for His Majesty’s Packets: building the Harbour at Dunmore

1. According to local tradition, a track steeped in legend runs from the ‘Forty Steps’ at Creadan Head to Fornaght beach and from there on over Knockavelish to Harristown Hill where a late Neolithic passage grave crowns the hilltop.

One popular interpretation makes it a slave route or possibly likely to be a smugglers route or even a ceremonial route linking Creadan Head to the Harristown passage grave.  

What is the track called?

                                A: Bóithrín na mBan Gorm

GAULTIER HERITAGE RAMBLES: Fornaght and Bóithrín na mBan Gorm Loop

1. Having served as a major in the Royal Marines during the Second World War, Major Cholmeley-Harrison moved to Ireland in 1945 and bought Woodstown House, a Regency villa. It was previously the home of Lady Carew, who had been at the Duchess of Richmond’s celebrated ball on the eve of the Battle of Waterloo and lived until 1903.

In the summer of what year did Cholmeley-Harrison rent Woodstown to Mrs Jacqueline Kennedy, widow of the assassinated US president?

                                        B: 1967

JFK Jnr remembered at Woodstown 1967

13.    On August 23, 1170, ‘Strongbow’ landed at Passage with at least 200 knights and 1,000 soldiers.

What was Strongbow’s real name?        

                                        C: Richard De Clare

https://www.libraryireland.com/biography/RichardDeClareStrongbow.php

1. In what year was the Barrow Bridge opened to connect Waterford to the newly developed port of Rosslare by rail?

Stretching from Co Kilkenny to Co Wexford, where the Suir, Barrow and Nore meet, it is 2,131 feet in length and up to the 1990s was the longest railway viaduct in the country.

                               B: 1906

The construction of the Barrow Bridge

In recent weeks planning permission was sought by SSE Airtricity to begin the process of removing the old heavy oil producing power plant located on Great Island Co Wexford.

The decommissioned power station had long been a thorn in the side of Cheekpoint residents, Co Waterford, due to the noise that emenated from the plant. In recent years this has been added to with the construction of a new gas fired power station adjoining the old site. However the plans to remove the old plant and its 300 foot chimneys was not met with widespread support. Many in the community expressed a wish to see the chimneys retained and recently a scheduled meeting to begin a campaign had to be cancelled due to the Corona Virus social distancing rules. Foremost in the critics of the plan was noted historian Julian Walton who pointed out the heritage value. The local development group had pointed out the similar plans for the Dublin based poolbeg chimneys had led to a successful national campaign for their retention.

Locals on both the Waterford and Wexford sides however, were taken aback when workers moved in on the site this week and already one chimney has been knocked with the assistance of explosives. No damage was caused locally, but it is understood that some windows were blown in at Great Island, Ballykerough and Campile.

Speaking on behalf of Cheekpoint residents Paddy Lebowski expressed the disgust felt by many at this sneaky act of architectural vandalism. Paddy went on to question the social distancing rules which appear to be not in evidence on the site. However due to the 2km rule imposed on newspapers and media in general it is feared that the site will be completely cleared before any attention is brought to bare on the situation.

Thanks to Sean O Briain for technical assistance with the ariel shot used

This month, I’m indebted to my good friend Mark Fenton for a story to bring a smile to people’s faces. Mark like myself was reared in a home where the sea was in our blood and we wanted nothing more than to sail away into the wild blue wonder. Maybe thats why we got on so well when we first met in a factory in Waterford. Friends ever since, he sent this story on to me recently of his maiden voyage. Just the antidote to the present Corona virus crisis.

When I was a child, all I wanted to do when I grow up was drive lorries or go to sea. The motivation for the lorries, was that my uncles in Cork drove regular runs to the continent or were hauling beet and molasses to and from the sugar factory in Mallow. But the sea was my first love, because my father Sean, God rest him, was a seaman. Not a sailor, not a weekend yachtsman but a true, deep-sea-going, bulk tanker, smelling of diesel and Old Spice, hard-working, hard-living and drinking seaman. He was, as it would turn out to be, one of the last of a breed and the likes of which is unlikely to be seen again on these shores. He was at home among the local band of salty characters, some of whom had exotic nick names like ‘Moochy Machi’, ‘Three-dog Kayting’ and ‘The Dinger’. Everyone either knew my father or knew of him and they knew he went to sea, and I the young me was determined to follow him.

We grew up at the end of the Rock shire Road in Ferrybank, Waterford. Our house was practically in the yard of the then fledgling Bell Lines, which grew to be a major container shipping operation. The skyscraping flour mills of R and H Hall was another neighbor on the North Wharf where ships came and went twenty four hours a day, seven days a week. Our weekends and holidays were spent walking the river wharves and banks from Redmond Bridge to the Barrow Bridge, along the now defunct Rosslare railway line, dodging the boat trains, counting wagons on sugar beet trains and waving to the crew of passing ships heading in and out of Waterford City. Bell Boats, Rock Boats, B+I Boats, Purcell cattle boats, tramp boats and coasters carrying livestock, soya, coal, timber and combine harvesters…. we knew all the names, ‘Racer’, ‘Rover’, ‘Ranger’, ‘Skellig Rock’, ’Livestock Express’,  ‘Miranda’, ‘Wakfuji Maru’… the list goes on. Global trade and transport were all around us. The ports of Rosenberg, Radicatel, London, Abudabi, Dubai, Karachi, Newark and New York were as familiar names to us as Kilmacow, Tramore or Wexford. And I dreamed of one day being at helm of one of them big ships traveling the oceans of the world.

It was clear to me then that there was no point staying on in school until I was eighteen when I could get away to sea at fifteen. From the 1950s right up until the early ’Eighties, this career path was possible and I had no reason to believe it would be a problem for me. However, the harsh economic realities of the time combined with a decade long dock strike in Waterford port, conspired to ensure that 1982 to 1985 were probably the worst time in Irish maritime history to attempt to embark on a seafaring career in my home town. The R and H hall boats were sold, Arklow Shipping had a reduced fleet, Bell Lines was struggling, opportunities on the cattle boats didn’t arise for an inexperienced 16 year old, it was a grim time on the quay side, the only boats going in and out of Waterford were few and far between, and foreign.

I had taken what was probably one of the last deckhand apprentice exams for Irish Shipping Ltd but by the time that competition was finalized, Irish Shipping had disappeared from the world’s oceans. In desperation, I applied to the Navy, my heart wasn’t in it and I held small hope of success.  With my dreams on hold for the moment, I took a position in a supermarket and spent my days stacking peas and beans while wishing I was instead ploughing the ocean wave.

But I never really gave up hope and one day, out of the blue, I received a call from a shipping agency based in Cork. They had a vessel due in Waterford in a couple of days and needed a crewman ASAP. My enthusiasm made up for my lack of experience and I was offered the job. I handed in my notice at the shop, put my love life on hold and packed my bag in preparation for my first signing on. The night before the big day, my mates and I rallied in Jordan’s ‘American Bar, a traditional seaman’s pub on the quays in Waterford, to toast my luck and to wish me ‘bon voyage’. Wasn’t I the proud sailor next morning as I stood on the aft deck, heartily waving to the lads on the pier as the ship slipped her moorings and pulled away?  I wondered where my first exotic destination was going to be?

But my beaming smile was quickly disappearing as I realized something was terribly wrong. The ship was turning about in the broad basin of the river and was heading inland towards the open span of the Redmond Bridge. Horror of horrors for a would be Waterford salty sea-dog, it dawned on me that , my first port of call could only bet a place called Fiddown, a little village 14 miles upriver in County Kilkenny not far from Kildalton,  the biggest farming college in Ireland.  My face was frozen as it dawned on me that I was probably the first person in my seafaring family to head away to sea and to end up in a village in the heartland of Irish agriculture. It took us about four hours to plough our way up there (pun intended) and when we tied up at the little quay, I swiftly secured a lift home from a Michael O’Brien and was sitting at my mother’s table in time for tea. My father told nobody – it would have been unpardonable for a Fenton to head to sea and end up in the middle of Co Kilkenny.

Unperturbed by this little hiccup I rejoined the vessel later that night and next morning we set sail for the port of Swansea, I held my breath as the ship slipped under the centre span of the city bridge and I waved up at the people looking down on us.

By the time we dropped the pilot at Passage East I was on the bridge and as the vessel made open sea between Dunmore and Hook head I couldn’t help but feel a little bit nervous, particularly as I noticed that  all the trawlers were steaming towards the shelter of Dunmore. I was wise enough to know that those men would go out in any kind of weather and seeing them heading for shelter had to be a bad omen. We spent two days and two nights between the lights of Dunmore and the beacon of Hook Head, bow into the storm without making any headway. When we eventually arrived in Swansea I thought I couldn’t possibly have been more ill. I had never been to Swansea before and probably because I was so ill, found it to be a rather depressing place full of coal and electricity pylons. Here we loaded coke for St Helier in the Channel Islands and with a quick turn-around we were gone. The trip down to the Channel Islands was uneventful although quite rough, particularly around The Needles and Lands End.  Arriving safely in port, I was a bit more upbeat about prospects. Which was just as well because things were about to take a turn much for the worse.

The first sign of disaster was when the ‘Old Man’ informed me that I was to take over the duties of cook. My culinary skills at this stage in my young life were confined to making toast. The second sign was when it became evident we were running out of food and water soon after leaving St Helier for Dieppe. The old man felt we would make it but the weather had other ideas. I still have nightmares about the nights between the lights of Phare de Cap Levi and Phare de Getteville on the Pointe de Barfleur in North West Brittany; I saw visions of death as the elements hammered our little vessel like a pencil in a swimming pool. Every now and then we would rise up on the crest of a massive wave only to find ourselves at the top with no support, to fall with a sickening slap, lights out, propeller spinning uselessly in the air and stalling on entering the sea again where the lights would go out. But we survived. The storm passed and we arrived in Dieppe.

But not before I learned something new about myself. Each morning the captain, the first mate and the chief engineer had a rasher, a sausage, and an egg for breakfast while the crew ate only cereal. This particular morning I was faced with the following dilemma: I had no bacon or sausages and just one egg. So who was to get the egg – the old man, the chief or the mate? I boiled it up and ate it with toast, before calling everyone else to a cereal breakfast. There was muttering but no mutiny.

In Dieppe, we were to load soya for Belfast, but here too was another dockers’ strike. By now, the shine was wearing off my dreams of a life at sea and as we were heading to Belfast I thought, I’d call it a day there. As they old sea-dogs say, after many other adventures, I arrived home on Christmas Eve, my mother was delighted to see me and never asked any questions. Neither were any explanations offered. Since then, my career path has not strayed from terra firma but I still get a great laugh from recollections of my short but sharp seafaring adventure.

My thanks to Mark Fenton, who shared this lovely, humorous, account of his first and final shipping out. He made it further than I ever did! Livig through these unprecedented times with the Corona Virus shutdown, we need every and any oppotunity to smile. I’m indebted to Mark for just such a tonic. If you want to pass on any comments to Mark, if you email tidesntales@gmail.com i will happily pass them on.