Any walk we ever do that includes the Minaun and its stunning views, invariable leads to a mention of Oliver Cromwell and his vow to take Ireland by Hook or by Crooke. Looking out the harbour we have the Hook peninsula in Co Wexford on the left and Crooke below...
We celebrated the Waterford Harvest Festival recently which had a significant input from the local Grow it Yourself GIY project. Its a philosophy that I have subscribed to with my wife Deena for many years, and I have my grandmothers generation to thank for...
Last weekend there was a homecoming of sorts to Cheekpoint. Members of the extended Condon family, the offspring of Mary Doherty and Larry Condon who married in the first decade of the last century, had a gathering in the village. I was asked to come to one event...
In 1932, a Hungarian sea captain, Rudolph Udvardy, who was master of the MV Honved,was in the port of Waterford with a cargo of Maize. To free up berth space, the Honved dropped down to Cheekpoint, where she anchored while the ship waited for an outgoing cargo....
Comparisons, it's said, is the thief of joy. So when it comes to the two lighthouses at either side of the mouth of the harbour, I would suggest that it is silly to choose one over the other. Hook light is much better known as the oldest working lighthouse in Europe,...
On the 1st September 1942, the SS Irish Willow rounded Hook Head and steamed for Dunmore East. With her destination Waterford port, it was a familiar course. But rather than being met by the pilot boat, this time she was intercepted by the local life boat Annie...
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 air plane which was followed closely by the dropping of bombs on the small...
This Sunday 21st August my wife Deena and I will conduct a heritage walk through Faithlegg commencing at 12noon at the Church. Its the 11th year that we've organised something for Heritage Week . Faithlegg is probably best known now as a location for weddings,...
Floating mines were a feature of both World Wars. These menacing mines in Waterford Harbour were deployed at sea or around the coast. The target was primarily the shipping that sustained the Allied side or thwarted naval incursions. Although the sailors who suffered...
Standing on the breakwater at Dunmore East last night, I found it hard to try to cast my mind back to the scene 99 years ago to the day. For on August 4th 1917 just after midnight, an explosion ripped through the hull of a U Boat laying mines between Dunmore and the...
I recently recalled the selling of Salmon in Cheekpoint. In conclusion of that piece, I mentioned the practice of running fish, a means of earning a bit of extra cash for some of life's pleasures, which invariably meant drink and cigarettes. Because the...
This week marks the 110 anniversary of the opening of the Barrow Railway Viaduct, 21st July 1906. Built to connect Waterford with Rosslare, the bridge crosses the Rivers Barrow & Nore at Drumdowney in Kilkenny and Great Island in Wexford. The event was officiated...
Being from Cheekpoint, I've often met people both at home and abroad with positive memories about the village or its inhabitants. Its usually a connection with an individual but also recollections of views from the Minaun, the meeting of the three sisters, or a meal...
A picture paints a thousand words they say, and that was proven yet again recently when Catherine Heffernan posted to the Cheekpoint Faithlegg and Coolbunnia Facebook page. The photo was of the Morning Star II, the pilot boat that operated from Cheekpoint when we were...
As a salmon fishing village, Cheekpoint, like all the others in the harbour, had to have a means of selling their fish. In our case we either had to travel to sell them. Or, when we were children in the 1970's, the buyers traveled around to collect the...
I'm occasionally asked what I miss most about drift-netting for Salmon. When it stopped in 2006 I was fishing on a part time basis, but I refused to participate in the buy out of licences, preferring instead to hope for a return. So when I answer, I'm usually a bit...
This morning, the Morgenster, a Dutch two masted, square rigged, sailing ship will enter Waterford Harbour with her crew and 30+ trainees aboard. She is sailing under the auspices of Sail Training Ireland and on Saturday she will be open to the public to mark the 200...
Adults can sometimes be guilty, inadvertently in fairness, of causing deep confusion in youngsters. An example I can recall was the placename "Buttermilk Castle" or more common with the fishermen simply "the Castle". The Castle was formidable lump of rock and...
Thomas Francis Meagher was born in 1823 in the building that is now the Granville Hotel on Waterford's busy quays. The family spent some years at Ballycanvan, hence the family tomb at Faithlegg. Thomas got an expensive education which culminated with Stoneyhurst...
If any one thread runs between my weekly blogs, it's the rivers. Being at the meeting place of the three sisters, the Rivers Barrow, Nore and Suir, that's probably not a surprise. But in all those blogs, one I think has been missing, the social element of the...
My normal blog generally follows a predictable theme of heritage or history concerning Waterford Harbour. However, although this post concerns heritage, which will become clear at the end, it also celebrates volunteers, our youth and decries the condition of our...
It's two years this month since I started to write my weekly blog about Cheekpoint and the Waterford harbour area. In that time I've written many varied accounts of growing up, the fishing, the sea and the history and heritage we have in abundance. Most of my...
Captain James Cook is a renowned explorer who led three separate expeditions into the largely unknown Pacific in the late 1700's and claimed much of it for his country. But he had the help of at least one Waterford man, a certain William Doyle, who has a headstone...
Let us honour if we can, the vertical man Though we value none, but the horizontal one W.H.Auden These lines from Auden often come to mind when someone dies, particularly when I realise just how much I used to rely on them or value them. I've mentioned this about my...
Would you like to be part of the ever growing Tides and Tales Community? If you would like to join our regular monthly email list, please complete the form below and hit subscribe.