Although many will associate the famine as a time of mass emigration from Ireland, the fact is tens of thousands were fleeing the country for many years prior to the catastrophic events of the 1840s. Canada Street owes its name to this era, and in this blog, I want to...
The City of Bristol departed the quay of Waterford in November 1840 for her home port of Bristol in a gale of wind. Anxious to keep to schedule the vessel would sail into one of the worst storms that season. She would later run aground, break up and all but two of the...
Recently my good friend David Carroll made a gift to me of Cormac Lowth's newly published comprehensive and beautifully illustrated book - Ringsend Sailing Trawlers. With Some History of Boatbuilding in Ringsend. The book captures the maritime, fishing, and seafaring...
In 1906 the River Suir was vibrant if weakening commercial thoroughfare transporting goods up and down from Clonmel to the sea on a daily basis, just like our motorways today. The boats used were flat-bottomed lighters (also called yawls above Carrick and barges) and...
The Cyprian container vessel CT Rotterdam (Ex BG Rotterdam I believe) encountered engine problems whilst off the Tuskar Rock on the southeast coast of Wexford yesterday afternoon (October 19th). The vessel had been en route to Port of Rotterdam, having...
On the 12th of November 1941 the British cargo ship Monmouth Coast (1928) was sailing 2 miles southwest of Hook Head, Wexford when it was attacked by 2 German aircraft. The vessel sustained slight damaged & one crew member was killed. According to the RNLI records...
On the 11th of November 1940 the SS Ardmore (1921) left Cork bound for Fishguard, Wales carrying a cargo of cattle and pigs. However, she never arrived. Just 3 miles south of the Saltee islands, Wexford, the ship hit a sea mine. It quickly sank and all 24 crew on...
I grew up with the placename Pill. And I suppose as is often the case, something so familiar goes without questioning. It was as much part of my vocabulary as Bight, Tailstone, Stroke, Taught, Backlash, Scooneen, Slob, and so on. Over time I came to...
One of our favourite boat trips is up the Campile Pill from where we can call to Dunbrody Abbey, visit the village itself or explore the neighbourhood and its interesting heritage. Although my favourite pastime is in exploring the fishing heritage of the area,...
For this years Imagine Arts festival I am doing two talks - both in Jordans on the Quay and both on the theme of Waterford Maritime History. The first is "In the Great Westerns Wake" - a reminisce of the ship that traded from the early 1930s to the mid-1960s from the...
For this year's Heritage Week Deena and I organised a weir building workshop based on my personal life experiences of working on the repair and the fishing of the traditional Waterford Harbour Head Weir. I decided to build a life-size model of the structure at...
After four long years of a hard slog, Cheekpoint finally got a new pontoon access to the water, bringing the village into the 21st Century. A small local committee with a very healthy membership of local boat owners was behind the project and from the outset, the...
Some might say that one event as a volunteer organiser for Heritage Week is noble, but two may be over the top. The truth is, I was thinking the same myself last week as the time clipped along and the workload seemed daunting. Having committed to do a...
On this day in 1870 the great and the good of the harbour area and beyond gathered to enjoy the sport of sailing and racing at the Hook Regatta. In this guest blog post David Carroll shares the spectacle and many of the characters who took part. The Standard and...
On Saturday 23rd July the Camino Society of Ireland came to our community to appreciate the role of the harbour in medieval pilgrimage. On a walk led by Damien McLellan, we met at Passage East, took the ferry to Ballyhack, and wandered the roads in search of pilgrims'...
Today marks the opening of the Barrow Railway Bridge and the South West Wexford line. I wrote previously about the planning and construction of the Bridge which was started in 1902 by the firm of William Arrol & Co to a design by one of the foremost engineers of...
I am delighted to have this guest blog entry from Cian Manning of a vivid account of just one of the many historic races that took place in the regattas of the past in Waterford City. In this case, it reveals the visit of the Oxford rowers in 1890 who came to compete...
For Heritage Week 2022, I am running an interactive course for 12 people on how to "sink" a typical local fishing weir based on my experiences as a child and young adult. We will also have a trip courtesy of Tomás Sullivan to an existing weir to appreciate the scale...
Although Sunday 26th June dawned wet and breezy, as the morning wore on the cloud started to lift and by early afternoon it was a beautiful sunny summer day, but with a strong SW breeze. As Deena and I drove towards Dunmore East Geoff Harris broadcast from the...
As you pass under Barrow Bridge entering the River Barrow or (Ross River as we call it in Cheekpoint) there is an outcrop of rock that rises almost vertically from the river. Located on the left hand side, or port if we want to be suitably nautical, this Kilkenny...
On Saturday 18th June 2022 I went for an evening boating trip. As Deena was entertaining some friends at home I was on my own, but we had already had two good trips out together - to Jack Meades and Campile earlier that week. Our first trip out, made it to Jack...
Recently Cian Manning featured a story in Irelands Own about the visit of disability rights campaigner Helen Keller to Ireland. Her entry point to the country was via Waterford City by ship and here Cian reprises the article with a specific focus on the local element....
As a young fisherman I regularly passed a curious vessel at what we called CAP. The area also had a grander title - Bellevue - the French for a beautiful view, assigned to a then crumbling Georgian era mansion. The name was at odds with the reality of that time as it...
My first introduction to Falskirt Rock was in the Spring of 1984 fishing on the decked motor boat Reaper with Jim Dips Doherty and his neighbour Denis Doherty. Denis pointed it out to me as we steamed away west from Dunmore East towards Tramore Bay with a deck filled...
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