After 50 years of living with the geographical feature that is the meeting of the Three Sisters, you might think that I would take it for granted at this point. Truth is though, I can't ever remember a time that the rivers fail to interest me. Ever changing and...
One of my earliest childhood memories was playing with my siblings in the old house on the hill in Coolbunnia one chilly summer morning. The scene was unsettling to us I remember, because our usual/familiar view of the harbour, the three rivers flowing our towards...
There's nothing as fickle as a market I guess. Products that go from boom to bust in a few short years, or less today when we think of technology. In the past Waterford, along with many other ports traded in a commodity that was considered an essential for the food...
I was lucky enough to have been raised at a time when regattas were a big event in Cheekpoint. Families came from upriver and down, and it was a day of races, fun and camaraderie in the village. Helping out with the organising, I would often hear tales of the older...
As a child there was many sights that I took for granted in a traditional fishing community such as Cheekpoint. Sights like men repairing nets, beam trawls laid out on the village green, weir poles at high water mark and timber boats of all shapes and descriptions....
I was a youngster when I first heard the tale of UC-44, a German U-Boat that sunk when she struck her own mine and was salvaged and brought back to Dunmore East. There her design and fighting capabilities yielded invaluable information to tackling the U-Boat threat....
Two weeks ago we looked at the mine incident that closed the Barrow Bridge in 1946. It was a floating mine, the origins of which was not identified, but it had been in the water for some time. It might conceivably have dated to WWI. At the time the mouth of the...
I was raised on the story of Captain Udvardy's grave in Faithlegg, which is marked with a very distinctive palm tree My grandmother was a young girl at the time, and was a front-seat witness to the affair, and had played a cameo role in the tale. Despite all the...
Last summer whilst out kayaking on the river I chanced a trip up the Ballycanvan stream, which leads up to the ever-popular Jack Meades at Halfway House. I made the trip in an effort to track the route of the Lighters that would have supplied the Kilns at Jack Meades...
Familiarity breeds contempt they say and so I guess that's why, in Cheekpoint at least, not much is made of the Bolton Milepost. But did you know there was a series of them, leading into Waterford? What were they for and where did they go? It's a story, like the...
The traditional start of the Salmon drift net season in Ireland was, for many generations February 1st , Imboloc or St Brigid's Day. Once opened it stretched to August 15th. It closed each week between 6 am on a Saturday morning to 6 am on the Monday. Once the week...
Cheekpoint is a traditional fishing village located 7 miles downstream from Waterford City. It has been an important navigation point for the ports of Waterford and New Ross as it is located at the meeting point of the three sister river network, the Barrow, Nore and...
Snowhill was, until recently, a mystery to me. As a child I assumed it had to do with snowdrops, the late winter/early spring blooms that lift your spirits and reassure you that warmer, longer days are on the way. Later I was told it's origins related to an old...
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...
I wrote last week about the earlier origins of Kilns and this post focuses on the design and methods employed. The local design is of a block shaped building of cut stone into which is built a firing chamber, lined with firebricks and insulated with rubble and clay. ...
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