I first began fishing eels commercially in the spring of 1984. Pat Moran asked me to join himself and Gerry Boland as the previous year had been so hectic. I jumped at the chance and in the next few days there was a lot of hustle and bustle in preparing...
It was a March evening in 1993 and my brother Robert had joined me with Pat Moran and Dermot Kavanagh as they sorted oysters on the back of a trailer in the Mount Avenue car park. It was promising to be one of those frosty evenings, dry and cold and very...
As a young boy fishing in the river, the one thing I hated more than anything, was keeping up to the nets with an oar. Pity the boy that let his mind wander and the boat blow off the nets, or worse, onto the mud on the flood tide on the coolagh (cool ya) mud. I first...
Pat Murphy of the Green always told me that according to Aggie Power of Daisy Bank House (Susan Jacobs Grandmother) the Reading Room was built in 1895, the year a horse called The Wild Man of Borneo won the Grand National. Mrs Adelaide Blake, (originally...
The Cheekpoint Fishing Heritage Project will host a social evening in the Reading Room Cheekpoint on Saturday 23rd Aug 2014 at 7.30 - 10pm. The event has a charge of €5 but senior citizens and children are free. Funds raised will go towards the running costs of the...
As a child in Cheekpoint there were various rhythms to the year. One was a boring repetitive one- school. There were others however, which were much more pleasant and one of the more interesting and natural was the fishery. I mentioned before the way of the tides...
I've spoken before about my maternal grandmothers feelings about emigration which put simply was a matter of great pain and loss. Last week got me to thinking about it more, as I met with cousin Ed and his family at a gathering in Crooke. Ed had travelled from...
We all have particular clocks that we need to respond to. For farmers I guess it’s the dawn, when its light enough to see what your doing and which stretches to the dusk. All in all a long day in the height of the summer, but is balanced by the dark of winter. For...
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