By Damien McLellan
Sunday, August 25th, 2024, concluded Ireland’s National Heritage Week, celebrating our cultural, historic, and natural treasures and resources. Of course, there were major national events, but mostly locals got together to share and enjoy perhaps overlooked or underappreciated treasures on our doorsteps.
Such a local event took place on this day in Cheekpoint, Co Waterford. As it was also Water Heritage Day, the Tides and Tales Maritime Community Project, organised and coordinated by Andrew Doherty, presented an afternoon of historical and craft items related to making a living in a fishing village, a Community of Tides, where the Suir meets the Barrow and flows out to the Celtic Sea.
It was a beautiful day, but we met at 1 pm in the historic Reading Room where Ray McGrath set the tone for the afternoon with his memories of the four key sounds in his life: the 8 am and then the 5 pm train rattling over the Barrow Bridge; the tide rushing in and out under his cottage above Mahon’s Weir and the comforting sound of punts moving with their outboard motors as fishermen worked the waters.
Andrew led the way down to the strand, his partner Deena keeping her eye on the stragglers. Andrew’s first stop was at his front gate where he showed us an old beam trawl used in the days of sail and tide before the advent of steam power and the coming of the otter board.
Our special guest, Marina Mulligan , the Bio Diversity Officer with Waterford City & Co Council, took the opportunity of this stop to point out in the nearby hedge a ragwort plant hosting the caterpillar stage of the rare Cinnabar moth. Many of us were surprised to learn that the infamous ragwort was the exclusive source of food and habitat of the Cinnabar moth, now diminishing as we successfully wage war with its host plant. Marina encouraged us to see roadside ragwort as a good thing, as she fielded questions from some whose ragwort was in the wrong place and how to deal with it.
This exchange underlined how useful these occasions can be, being able to show and tell, and being able to ask questions of people who knew what they were talking about and liked being interrupted with questions. It also set the tone for the afternoon, but the relaxed and enthusiastic to and fro often had Andrew looking a bit anxiously at the time.
Down on the strand at Moran’s Poles, Marina gave an entertaining talk and explanation of the various species of seaweed at our feet before we moved on to what for me was the set-piece of the afternoon, local fisherman, Pat Moran, demonstrating how to ‘trip off’ a punt, meaning, how to push out a boat from the shore so that it stays safely anchored and afloat until it is next needed. See below.
While the attendees were still buzzing, Breda Murphy soon got back their attention with her personal experiences of the Passage and Crooke Cockle Women, including her grandmother, who picked and prepared cockles on the strand before taking them to Waterford City by ass and cart for sale every Friday. She drew affectionate laughter as she described her wimpy attempts to carry a half-empty hessian sack of cockles up the steep path to Crooke church while her elders made the same journey three times with bulging sacks on their shoulders.
We walked up the blackberry laden Whelan’s Road from the strand and down to the village green where William Doherty had prepared an ingenious model to explain the relatively local tradition of fish weirs. Believed to have been first developed by the Cistercians at nearby Dunbrody Abbey and in use by them until the Dissolution, they were deployed, with one or two exceptions, until recent times to trap fish. William enthusiastically explained to his very interactive audience how they were constructed, using larch timber and how the outgoing tide was harnessed to trap and then recover the fish.
Ray McGrath reflected on the afternoon with his appreciation of the events and made a heartfelt plea for farmers to continue to shift to organic fertiliser and stop the poisoning of the fish and the river by phosphate run-offs, a timely warning to express on Water Heritage Day.
Next, Andrew invited Myra Desai, daughter of the late local fisherman John Heffernan to read a poem she wrote fitting the occasion, which is reproduced here with her kind permission.
Finally, back to the Reading Room for coffee, tea and cakes prepared by Ellen, with Hannah, Laura and Moya. There was a further presentation planned but I headed home, tired but happy, having feasted well on a lovely afternoon of information, entertainment and good company.
Thank you Damien for this wonderful sense of the day. The cakes were supplied by Julie Doherty AKA Cake Dame. Brian Power and family generously donated all the other supplies at Power’s Shop, Cheekpoint. Conversation flowed, the photographic exhibition was enjoyed and the committee provided a short update on the new website, which is generously funded by the Heritage Council. If you would like to know the details here is a recording of the presentation.
