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...
The Barrow Bridge was officially opened in 1906 to connect Waterford's train station, and thus the SW of Ireland, to the newly developed port at Rosslare. I've written before about the initial planning and concern about crossing the River Barrow which separates...
We were based in Dunmore in the winter of 1983 for the Herring fishing but we returned home in the Reaper for Christmas, and along with all the other half-decker’s, manoeuvred inside Cheekpoint quay, where they could be moored without any concern for their safety....
Christmas time in my Grandmothers was marked by a hunt. It was her search for addresses for friends both at home and abroad, addresses she had scribbled on scraps of paper or cut from an envelope and squirrelled away. Some were in the glass case, others in her box of...
I've covered the Herring Drift Net Fishery in several parts these last few weeks, and today in the run up to Christmas, I wanted to recount an incident that made Christmas a little more poignant for me in the mid 1980's. We were selling directly at the time to Polish...
One of our most intriguing ruins in the area must be the Lookout in the Glazing Wood. The Lookout stands above the River Suir and is now surrounded by Larch trees, part of the Coillte forestry scheme. But in the past it would have had fine views of the river,...
Growing up in the Mount Avenue in the 1970's the most notable and invasive feature on our young lives was neither the magnificent Barrow Railway viaduct, or the colliding waters of the three rivers as they met below our home. That honour, if that phrase is...
Over the last few weeks I've looked back on the Herring Driftnet Fishery of Waterford Harbour and this week I wanted to bring the practical side of it to a close with a look at the selling of fish. That first year of fishing herring, we had a market in Dunmore...
Over the last few weeks I've occasionally covered my exploits fishing herring in Waterford harbor. The first week looked at getting prepared, and the second installment looked at the finding of the shoal and the catch. This week I look at the really hard...
I've mentioned before that I first came to live in the Russianside with my grandmother, Maura Moran, in my late teens. "Nanny" as she was called was in the family had her own way of expressing herself. But of course, she was just a different generation, and from an...
As the Reaper and the other Cheekpoint boats proceeded downriver, we were joined by the Passage and Ballyhack men, forming a convoy of decked and half decked motor boats of varying size and power and a multitude of colours. Depending on the tides, the Passage...
Halloween is upon us again. In the past it was a very different occasion and I've written about the Halloween of my childhood before. Now it wouldn't be Halloween without a Ghost story and here's one my Father told1. "There was a family called Walsh who lived above...
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