On December 3rd, 1917, the British steamer SS Copeland, on a voyage from Glasgow to Cork with general cargo, was sunk by the German submarine U-57, 5 miles SSW of Tuskar Rock, St. George Channel. 12 persons were killed. U57 was launched on 29 Apr 1916 and sank over 60...
A guest blog by David Carroll. In the Spring of 1941, Hitler ordered an intensification of air attacks on shipping in the coastal waters around the UK. As a result, the Irish Sea, St. Georges Channel, the Bristol Channel and the seas off the south coast of Ireland...
On Wednesday, 29th October 1862, the Royal Yacht Squadron vessel Eva was at anchor at Cheekpoint, Co Waterford, awaiting favourable sailing conditions before setting out on a Mediterranean cruise. A storm had cleared, and as the day broke, a watery sun confirmed the...
The following blog is an insight into an English naval blockade of Waterford and New Ross following an Irish uprising in 1641 which started the Confederate Wars 1641-1653. It is drawn from a first person account of Captain Thomas Powell of the armed merchantship...
On Thursday, 18th June 2026, I had the opportunity, as a member of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society, to join other members for a private visit to view the new excavations at the internationally important Woodstown Viking settlement. The site, which...
I was delighted to be featured on an episode of the very popular maritime podcast Steady As She Goes with host Captain Seán Boyce of Rosslare. The episode covers a wealth of topical stories of the coast, including a proposed new maritime history gallery in Waterford,...
“Tram and Ship Collide” “A tramcar and a schooner came into collision in Dublin yesterday. The tram was crossing Victoria drawbridge on the Ringsend line while a three masted schooner was being berthed in the Grand Canal Company basin, which is spanned by the...
We are delighted to hear that the Rosslare Harbour Maritime Heritage Centre have created a new podcast series and the first episode has just dropped. Hosted by Captain Sean Boyce, the programme will profile much of the work of the centre, which was founded in October...
Irish Merchant Ships and Shipowners: An Outline History of Powered Ships from the Beginning of Steam Navigation. The Irish Mercantile Marine 1815 – 2015 was recently published (2025) and is the incredible lifetime's work of Terry Conlon. He is to be admired,...
Veale’s Brigantine Melina An email query about the Veale seafarers of Waterford brought me to the Waterford Museum of Time this week in search of a painting of a Waterford vessel, the Melina. In the company of Cliona Purcell and Donnchadh Ó'Ceallacháin of the Museum,...
We have recently explored the exploits of a noble New Ross sea captain, John Williams. This week I wanted to look into some of the activities of one of his ships, the Lady Bagot. The Lady Bagot was one of several vessels operated by the Graves family of New Ross and...
Today's guest blog comes from Roy Dooney who has previously delivered a facinating presentation to the Barony of Gaultier Historical Society on the building of Dunmore harbour. I'm indebted to Roy for typing up his presentation for sharing with the readership. I found...
Living beside a river, your neighbours often include those on the opposite bank. As rivers tend to be natural boundaries, these neighbours can be in different counties or indeed provinces and so it was between my grandmother in the Russianside Cheekpoint, Co...
Mark Anthony was born in Waterford in 1786 and at fifteen joined the Royal Navy serving for close on twenty years until retiring to take up a post as harbour master at Dunmore East. Mark Anthony was born second in line to Joseph Anthony and his wife Juliet Lambert at...
Waterford’s Neptune Shipyard opened in February 1843 as a repair yard for the growing number of iron hulled steamers of the Malcomson fleet. The quaker family had started out in the milling business in Clonmel before branching out into textiles in Portlaw and...
This months guest blog is brought to us by Pat Nolan. Pat recently republished a piece in the monthly Marine Times magazine with the headline "A Lifetime Fishing, Billy Power Recalls. It was to coincide with Billy's recent retirement. Needless to say I've met Billy...
At 3am on a damp, misty February morning in 1959, Waterford harbour pilot, Pat Rogers was arriving into Dunmore for work when he spotted a ship close to the shore up the harbour. In a fresh SE wind a small ship had run onto the rocks at Ardnamult Head, or the Middle...
In 1904 a local paper(1) announced that war had been declared from Waterford Harbour. The war was a game, but a serious game, that involved up to 200 ships and extended across the length of the Irish Sea. The Waterford Flotilla stationed in the harbour played a...
In a dramatic few weeks in August 1917 Dunmore became the centre of a naval espionage operation that saw the destruction of a U-boat, the rescue and interrogation of her captain and a salvage operation to lift the boat from the depths of Waterford harbour. But...
Last Saturday I had the good fortune to call over to Waterford Airport to see the materials that were uncovered by Noel McDonagh at Creaden Head, Co Waterford. While there we got into a conversation with Michael Farrell of the Barony of Gaultier Historical Society...
An astonishing engagement during the Confederate wars in Ireland, saw an unlikely achievement by Irish rebels, when they sunk the flagship of Cromwellian forces at Duncannon. The loss of the Great Lewis must have been a significant boost to the confederate forces at...
In my recent book on growing up in Cheekpoint I devoted a chapter to my uncle Sonny and his operation of the Cheekpoint pilot boat. His role was to embark and disembark pilots coming to and from New Ross. The role of pilot or river guide is probably as old as people...
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...
April's guest blog comes from a page regular, my cousin, James Doherty. Today he's talking about a topic that was very much part of some recent blogs and presentations I gave on the Paddle Steamer service that ran between the city and Duncannon. In this piece James...
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