In May I came to the difficult decision to change my weekly martime blog to a monthly publication. Several people have asked me why and so I thought it best to set out my thoughts and reasons. I first started blogging when in college as a mature student studying...
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 center 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...
While collecting my daughter from a bus recently I happened across a limestone slab set into the pavement behind the Waterford bus station. It was battered, damaged and out of place, but the inscription was legible. It reads In Memory of Louis C Lee of Aberdeen. ...
There was plenty of drama along the Irish coast in the First World War, some of which was directly played out in the harbour, whilst others eventually washed up, or in this case was towed into, the harbour. One such story is of the SS Hermione, a saga that continued...
Generally, ships in distress receive a welcome in any port, but this was not so with the Liverpool barque Sparkling Wave. For the ship was carrying an explosive cargo, of such a quantity, the city fathers of Waterford could not permit her into their port for fear of...
A stormy January in 1862 saw tremendous seas and howling gales that created havoc in the Irish seas and beyond. As ships do, they sat it out where possible and then when it passed, they raised anchor and got underway. The gales however had not gone, merely abated. ...
In recent weeks we've looked closely at the Waterford Steam Navigation Company and their river based service. The feedback has been very positive, many contacting me to remark on how vibrant and busy the rivers were, and how important they were for transportation and...
Last week we looked at the river services operated by the Waterford Steamship Company. This week I wanted to look at the work of one particular ship the Paddle Steamer Ida. The PS Ida was launched from the Neptune Iron Works on Friday 27th September 1867 and was...
In our first guest blog 2018, Brendan Grogan brings us this wonderful summary of the life and maritime career of Captain Richard Farrell. Captain Farrell, as I always heard him referred to, was highly respected in his role as Harbour Master, but then again having seen...
Last year I wrote about the astonishing flotilla that departed from Passage East for St James Fair in Bristol in 1635. I'd long been aware of this connection, particularly Faithlegg's connection with the English city dating back to the Norman conquest. That said I'm...
The last Friday of each month I try to source a contribution from a guest writer. This month, David Carroll gives another slice of his early life growing up in Dunmore East concerning the shipwrecked Saint Austell. It's a wonderfully researched account of a...
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