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...
We completed our Mayday Mile event - Cheekpoint to Dunmore by Cliff and Shore - in aid of our local RNLI station at Dunmore East on Sunday, May 22nd, 2022. Although the day dawned overcast and damp by 11 am the cloud was lifting and the walk proceeded in a fresh SW...
As part of the RNLI Mayday Mile fundraiser, author David Carroll returns this week with another fascinating insight into the history of the Dunmore East RNLI. You can donate to the Dunmore East Mayday mile page here. David is the author of numerous guest blogs on this...
As part of the RNLI Mayday Mile, this year author David Carroll has agreed to join our team to help promote and fundraise for our local station at Dunmore East. Our 22km walk takes place on Sunday 22nd and over May we will have a number of lifeboat-related blogs. You...
Today marks the 75th anniversary of the loss of a very important vessel in Irish maritime heritage and history, the Muirchú and page regular David Carrol has agreed to share the story of the ship and her final voyage with us. Having been laid-up since late 1946, the...
The Mayday Mile is a major fundraising initiative of the RNLI. 150 people drown in UK and Irish waters every year. And this summer, thousands of people will get into danger by the water. Ordinary people enjoying days out with family or friends. It happens so easily,...
I finally received my long-anticipated copy of Pete Goulding’s book on Irish lighthouse fatalities, and I can heartily recommend it to anyone with an interest in lighthouses, maritime heritage, or Irish history in general. When the Light Goes Out, a clever title by...
An official mail packet service ran between Milford Haven and Waterford from 1787 to 1848. The service often referred to at the time as the Southern Route, operated in competition with an earlier route between Holyhead and Dublin*. Although the Southern route was...
The very existence of Waterford and the quays are linked to the coming of the Vikings, who arrived in the mid 9th Century to the area. The harbour was first seen as a staging point, from where raids could be launched inland via the Three Sisters river network of the...
Last month we explored the loss of the American Sailing Ship Columbus, lost on the Hook Peninsula in 1852. The ship was wrecked on the jagged rocks, thanks in no small part to the mistaken belief that the Hook Head lighthouse was actually Tuskar Lighthouse, about...
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