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...
Jack Meade's is one of Waterford's, if not the country's, most popular pubs/restaurants. Like all businesses it has had to adapt and diversify to remain viable, and given that it's over 300 years old, its seen more than a bit of change down the years. The pub itself...
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...
I first heard about the press gang menace while fishing for salmon in the river as a child. The story was introduced, like so many others by my father, in a dramatic way. We were drifting on the ebb tide at night, off Ryan's shore, when we heard a boat rowing...
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...
Some might consider this title a mite provocative. Indeed others might think on the date of publication and ponder a connection. However, although it is intended to be provocative, it is in no way a joke. The monuments I refer to are at least a millennium old and are...
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...
The SS Honved was a Hungarian registered ship when she called to Waterford in 1932 with a cargo of Maize for Halls in the city. She dropped down to Cheekpoint to await an outgoing cargo, and whilst there, her Captain died. Rudolp Udvardy was subsequently...
Have you ever wondered why a palm tree stands in Faithlegg graveyard. Well Faithlegg Graveyard's Palm Tree is a symbol of love. It marks the grave of Captain Rudolph Udvardy, a Hungarian Sea Captain. He fell ill while aboard his ship the SS Honved at Cheekpoint in...
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....
Last week we looked at the story of the sinking of UC-44 in Dunmore East in August of 1917. This week I wanted to complete the account with a look at what subsequently occurred to the salvaged sub and her crew. The U-boat was thoroughly examined and the design and...
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....
The traditional start of the Salmon drift net season in Ireland was, for generations, February 1st. Once opened it stretched to August 15th, the Feast of the Assumption, and a very important church holiday in the village in the past. By the time I started to fish...
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...
Many readers will know that we have a holy well in Faithlegg dedicated to St Ita. January 15th is her feast day, (she reputedly died on this day in 570AD). We looked at St Ita around the same time last year, and I left it with a question in terms of why the well is...
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