Irish Folklore Commission Archives

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 the season had been shortened to commence on St Patricks Day, but I was raised on stories of the February start and the harsh winter conditions faced by my father and my mothers people.

My maternal Grandmother Maura Moran raised me on stories of the conditions her father (Michael) and brothers (Ritchie, Paddy, Christy, Mickey, Johnny and Willie) faced while drifting for fish. One of those earliest memories I believe, was the smell of drying clothes at the open fire day and night. All the outer garments and even the socks steaming away on the fire, and her mother, Catherine, often up through the night, keeping the fire in and turning the clothing, so that the men would be some way comfortable going back out to fish. That might be the following morning, or in a short few hours depending on the tides. The season in those times closed each week between 6am on a Saturday morning to 6am on the Monday. Once the week opened it operated for 24 hrs a day.

Paddy Moran RIP and Michael Ferguson RIP
Ranging nets on Ryan’s Shore 1950’s

Walter Whitty (RIP) told me that as a child he remembered seeing “oilskins” hanging to dry in the high street. These were not the comfortable oilskins of today. These were homemade, by the women generally and cut from calico purchased in town. The calico would be measured, sown and then soaked in linseed oil to keep the water out (or at least some of the water). They would then be dried in the sun and be fit to wear. My Grandmother said that often as not an oilskin might return from sea journeys and during WWII might wash up on the strand or in the nets, but in general the men wore thick overcoats to keep the weather out and always a few pairs of socks if they had them.

Blessing the boats, Nets and men prior to the opening 1930’s

Terry Murphy (RIP) once told me a yarn. He was only a boy and was fishing with Billy the green, grandfather of Elsie Murphy. He called down this cold frosty morning and Billy came out with his socks in his hands. He plunged the socks into the water barrel and squeezed them out. He then put them on his feet and put his boots on. Terry paused for dramatic effect and looked at my puzzled expression. “Well” he said, “when you are on the oars all day the water in your socks heats you up better than any hot water bottle”. It was often I saw the proof of those words since, I have to admit.

The oars were the only way to get around and it meant that fishing was a slower, more rhythmical affair. I’ve written before about how hard it was for us as children even with outboard motors to use the oars. The men in the past had to use the tides and had to make the best out of each drift. Once set the aim was to get the maximum out of each drift, prior to hauling and setting again. It meant that on ebb tide when they set from “Binglidies” or “the rock” that they drifted as far as they could, then reset the nets from where they stopped, rather than returning (as we did with the aid of an outboard). They would drift to the end of the ebb tide, take the low water where they found it and return village-wards with the incoming tides. My Grandmother said the men were starving on their return. They might put in to warm some tea in a billy can, but often as not, wouldn’t eat from the time they left the house to when they returned. (Low water to high water is a total of 6 hours)

Returning home was also work of course. The hemp nets that my Grandmothers father and brothers used had to be ranged out of the boat and “spreeted” – hauled up and dried in the wind. Not doing so would shorten the life of the nets which was a cost they could not afford. So on returning to go fish, the nets had to be lowered and then ranged back into the boat. Any wonder the majority of my gran uncles took the boat to America or England as soon as they could. Any wonder also that it was the older men and young boy that did the fishing in all the other families around, those old enough choosing the emigrant boat or a sea going berth, at least until the summer peal run.

Poles along the quay for “spreeting” or drying the nets 1950’s

As I mentioned in my own time, the start of the season had been shifted to St Patricks day and in the 1990s (1996 I think) the season was destroyed from the perspective of commercial fishing in Cheekpoint in that it was reduced to a June 1st – Aug 15th season and operated from 6am – 9pm. It was a slow strangulation of the fishery which eventually closed in 2006. Funnily enough in those times there was hardly a week went by without some media outlet decrying the state of the Salmon fishery and trying to close down the drift netting as a means of preserving the Salmon stocks. Salmon stocks have not recovered however. Now those media outlets have to look beyond the traditional bogeyman, and yet seem unwilling to challange any sacred cows such as farming, industry or forestry.

My Facebook and Twitter pages are more contemporary and reflect not just heritage

and history but the daily happenings in our beautiful harbour:

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Pat Murphy of the Green always told me that according to Aggie Power of Daisy Bank House (Susan Jacobs Grandmother) the Reading Room was built in 1895, the year a horse called The Wild Man of Borneo won the Grand National. Mrs Adelaide Blake, (originally Adelaide Power – Faithlegg House), who then resided at Fairy Mount had it built as a free library for the people of the area. I always wondered what it would have looked like in this era, with the pot bellied stove sitting in the middle of the floor and people sitting around in it reading a paper or a book or playing cards and chatting.

At some point in my teens I read D.H Lawrence’s Sons and Lovers. In the story the central character, Paul Morel, struggled to move away from his working class mining roots in Wales through, in part, his visits to the mining unions sponsored Reading Rooms. In it were stocked lines of books and a supply of current newspapers, that the miners and their families could be better informed and have broader horizons. Had this been Adelaide’s intention? The
Reading Room has always been a feature in our lives in Cheekpoint. For social, health, community matters and education, it has played a continuous role. For some it was probably a tentative role, an occasional visit but to me it was always central, important and respected.

Jim Duffin playing “the Box” 1990’s
Photo credit Bridgid Power

One of my earliest memories was queuing to attend a sale of work coming up to Christmas time. Doors opening, we rushed in to buy a comic, book or some toy or other. Home baking was also part of the day and if lucky we might get to share with others in a bag of homemade buns or biscuits and a fizzy lemonade. Whatever few bob we had would be quickly spent, but I could always rely on my Grandmother for an extra dig out.

At the end of the day we might pick up some pieces that no one else would buy, as the place was cleaned up and I recall Martin Nugent (and later Jim Duffin) burning some magazines and other odds and ends outside by the back door. In those days a tall hedge blocked the “Hall” as we sometimes called it, from the road and all around was a mixture of grass and mud.

The Hall in the past was a simple affair. No toilet, a small porch, the large room that could be divided in two by sliding doors and the stage area and back door which was an addition in the early 1950’s. Tommy Sullivan’s father Chris had taken on the job, with the help of local volunteers. The Hall had been originally made of a timber framework with corrugated iron walls and roof and internally was panelled by wooden lathes. The “insulation” was horsehair and there was many the night that we huddled around an old Superser gas heater trying to keep warm.

Sunday morning social gathering 1940’s

The stage at the rear of the hall was used for concerts and as a musical stage and in our own times as the space where the DJ’s of the youth club discos spun their vinyl discs. Principal DJ was Philip Duffin and deputy was Michael “bugsy” Moran. Philip preferred disco, Bugsy was rock and it was always a bone of contention. I can still remember Bugsy stripping wires with his teeth in an effort to add an extra speaker to “burst some eardrums”. My first and last appearance on the stage was a mid 70’s concert where I performed “Little Boy Blue”, not my finest hour!

Ray McGrath regales the villagers at a recent Heritage week event

There was also a brown wardrobe which gave the hall its other function this was the Dispensary. I’m a little in the dark about the origins of it, but in our day it was where you went on a Tuesday to see the doctor and the wardrobe was unlocked and swung back to reveal an array of medications, timber spatulas for depressing your toung and worst of all – syringes. At some point in the 1980’s the wardrobe disappeared and locally it was known that there was some issues about medications being stored in “inappropriate places” It was only a few years back in Dungarvan that a local man told me how he and friends used to travel around the rural dispensaries in a search for drugs, he joked about how easy it was to break into these cabinets and to both medicate yourself and provide an income boost from supplying others!

John Jacob entertaining the Thursday Club 1990’s
Photo Credit; Bridgid Power

I’ve written before about how important it was as a venue for civil defence. But it was also a space for community meetings and social gatherings for young and old. It was the need to improve conditions for all members of the community that spurred voluntary efforts in the 1980’s and many years after to improve the hall to the standards it is at now. Details of those many volunteers were captured in a 2009 publication “Cheekpoint & Faithlegg; Through the Ages” via the Development Group

My Aunts Margaret O Leary and Ellen Doherty (RIP) at last years craft fair
photo credit Becky Cunningham – Cheekpoint FB page

I’ve often heard remarks about the Hall being unfit for modern purposes. And to be honest, it probably is a bit modest compared to some of the venues that are on offer in the area and that citizens might be used to availing of. But for me the Reading Room is a special place, filled with memories, fulfilling a modest useful purpose and a testament to the vision and probably the hopes for the community of Adelaide Power. Ar dheis Dé a anam Adelaide

I publish a blog each Friday. If you like this piece or have an interest in the local history or maritime heritage of Waterford harbour and environs you can email me at russianside@gmail.com to receive the blog every week.

My Facebook and Twitter pages are more contemporary and reflect not just heritage

and history but the daily happenings in our beautiful harbour:

F https://www.facebook.com/whtidesntales T https://twitter.com/tidesntales

Tag: Irish Folklore Commission

February – traditional start date of the Salmon Driftnet Fishery

The Reading Rooms Cheekpoint