I wrote previously about growing up in Cheekpoint in the 1970’s and how the feast of St Patrick was primarily a religious occasion and a very welcome day off from school, if it fell in mid week. As I recalled in that piece getting to the nearest St Patricks Day...
In 1819, newlyweds Nicholas Power and Margaret nee Mahon moved into their new home, Faithlegg House. It was bought from a financially insolvent Cornelius Bolton. They were the first Catholic landlords of the area since the Norman era Aylward family, who were...
There was once a village at Faithlegg. It stood on the left hand side of the road, past the church, heading for Waterford city. Locally it has always been said that the village was wiped out when the black death swept the country and such was the fear attached to the...
There is a yarn I was told years ago about a quiet, unassuming man named Christy Doherty (RIP) that speaks to me of the fishermen of Cheekpoint. It concerned an incident at a fishing weir located just below the village close to the Mount Quay and Sheag Rock. The story...
We often fear what we don't know, have never experienced or what is new and different. As free ranging children of the 1970's one of the more mysterious and fear inducing encounters must have been in what was then called the "Oak Woods" but what is now part of...
Last week I visited Ballyhack Castle in Co Wexford with my wife Deena. It was a bit of a day out, and most enjoyable as the sun shone, entry to the castle was free and neither of us had a care in the world on a welcome day off for us both. Later I posted about it on...
One of the most beautiful views, and quieter walks that you will find in in East Waterford is the Minaun, overlooking the Meeting of the Three Sisters and with panoramas over the counties of the SE, down the harbour and out to the Saltee Islands. My mother told me...
I was often chided for my romantic notions of the Cheekpoint name deriving from the fairy folk, the Sidhe. However in recent months strong, albeit circumstantial, evidence is coming to the surface that those of us with romantic notions may not be totally without...
I was reared on a story about the local weirs. As I heard it, one day the cot fishermen of Carrick and New Ross and areas in between descended en mass on Cheekpoint and proceeded to cut down the fishing weirs in the river. The cot men were bazzed out of it with stone...
As the Irish Russian diplomatic tensions deepen, it came as a complete shock to the tiny neighbourhood of the Russianside, Cheekpoint, Co Waterford, to learn that they were to face mass deportation over the Easter weekend. News of the deportation broke on Thursday...
A recent Facebook and Twitter post of the Cross on Cheekpoints Green, prompted a large reaction and got several comments particularly from an international audience asking why was the cross overlooking the village and when was it put there. My recent snow photo One of...
This week in a look ahead to the coming St Patrick's day festival I wanted to share this piece which celebrates the hard work and personal integrity of one of our own. I've spoken about emigration to America before from the village. Todays piece featuring Bill Lannen...
On the night of my book launch Nationwide, the show that showcases positivity, human interest and regional stories, came along to capture the scene and the atmosphere of the night. This was followed up with an interview in Cheekpoint one dry crisp November sunrise. ...
For generations in the harbour here a small and awkward looking fishing craft was a constant feature. Called locally a Prong, it had a variety of uses which probably sustained its use for so long, but the origins of the craft are a mystery and almost now extinct, it...
Following the launch of my first book I received an invitation today to speak to the Waterford Archaeological & Historical Society annual lunch. I decided to give a short presentation about one aspect of the local heritage which is featured in my book, that of...
Cheekpoint and McAplins Suir Inn are synonymous. One without the other seems unimaginable. The family came to the village in 1971 and this last week celebrated 46 years in business in the village. An achievement worth recording in itself, but the pub itself dates to a...
Welcome to my online gallery. It arose from a post by Maria Doyle, originally from Ballyhack. She suggested a photo library taken of my book cover from wherever people read it. And the title of this online gallery is suggested by Maria too. Please feel free to...
As my regulars now know, I launched my first book last Friday 20th October. Called Before the Tide Went Out it tells my own story from my earliest memories into my childhood recollections of the village of Cheekpoint and the fisherfolk that made up my world. I bring...
Few could imagine in this day and age, the joy of attending a disco in an old hall, with broken windows and a sagging floor with dodgy electrics and no toilet or running water. But in rural Cheekpoint in the 1970's every teenager from the village and for miles around...
Sunday 7th September 2008 dawned bright and clear. A good day for a trip, and a good day for a match. Waterford were to meet Kilkenny in the All Ireland Hurling final and expectations were high. It had got off to a slow start, with some controversy but had improved...
The day after my fathers ninth birthday, 26th August 1940, he witnessed something that profoundly marked his life. Up on the hills around the village he caught sight of his first ever German airplane which was followed closely by the dropping of bombs on the small...
Growing up in a fishing village like Cheekpoint in the early 1970s, nets were part of the everyday scene in the community. They lay around in the same way tractors and machinery hang round a farmyard. Nets for fishing the weirs, trawl nets including beam and otter,...
Because I was raised in a traditional fishing community and went to fish as a child, I often took for granted what others consider magical. But there was one such phenomenon is what we call locally "Fire in the water", that never lost its appeal. And although it was...
As children in the 1970's one of our favourite games was Cowboys and Indians. Everyone wanted to be John Wayne, or indeed Clint Eastwood as it was the era of the spaghetti western. On one occasion we were making a lasso out of some rope in the yard when my father fell...
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