Workboats on the River Suir Archives

12/05/202312/05/2023

Maurice Davin – A man of the River Suir

This coming weekend my brother Robert and I will participate again in the RNLI fundraiser the Mayday Mile. This year, we are rowing the River Suir from Carrick to Cheekpoint. And to whet the appetite David Carroll has contributed a guest blog. David explores the life and work of another man of the river Maurice Davin, who like ourselves found such joy and excitement from being out on its waters. If you would like to support the RNLI, you can make a donation to our page as part of team Dunmore East, or indeed seek out you own local lifeboat which is participating also. Take us away David.

Carrick-on-Suir was the birthplace of Maurice Davin. He was born on June 29^th, 1842, the eldest son of a prosperous farming family at Deerpark, who also owned a successful river trading business. With the security that a comfortable upbringing provided, Maurice could afford to indulge in a wide variety of sporting interests.

Regarded as one of the world’s finest all-around athletes – he was also a rower, rugby player, boxer, and cricketer – he was a respected household name across Ireland. Like his brothers Tom and Pat, he was a wonderfully talented competitor and achieved international fame in the 1870s when he broke several world records. However, he is best remembered for being one of the founders of the Gaelic Athletic Association (GAA) in Thurles on November 1^st, 1884. He chaired the meeting and became the first president of the GAA.

Maurice Davin 1842 – 1927. *Courtesy of Tipperary Museum of Hidden History*

On the death of his father in 1859, he joined with his mother, a woman described as being of great acumen, to run the family’s river haulage business and the large farm at Deerpark, rented from the Marquess of Ormond.

In 1994, Séamus Ó Riain, a former President of the GAA wrote a biography, entitled: ‘Maurice Davin (1842-1927): First president of the Gaelic Athletic Association’. In the book, he gives us a wonderful description and account of the river trade, in which the Davin family were most prominent:

“The other arm of the Davin economy was the river trade, which was of long standing, having been initiated by Denis senior in the previous century. Succeeding generations maintained and developed the enterprise…

The first team pulled the noddy as far as Ballydine, the second took it forward to Kilsheelan and the third completed the journey to Clonmel. A towing path was constructed on the northern bank which made it possible for teams of horses to do the hauling. Goods were conveyed from Waterford in ‘lighters,’ boats capable of carrying up to sixty tons. The usual cargo was coal, iron, timber and feeding stuffs. Sweeps of oars propelled the lighter with the tide to Carrick where the cargo was transferred to smaller craft called ‘yawls.’ These boats were constructed by Kehoes of Carrickbeg who had earned a high reputation as boat builders. They used Oregon pine which was robust and durable enough to withstand the pressures of the strong river currents and heavy merchandise they had to carry.

Four and sometimes six horses formed a team to pull the yawl. At least two teams were needed and took alternate trips, so each team got a rest period. Big bony horses were chosen and specially schooled for the work. The strongest and most reliable animal was given the lead position and the other horses were positioned in line behind him. They were hitched with strong ropes to a forked post of oak set in the deck on the yawl. While all the horses had halters, only the lead one had a bit in his mouth. A fold of hay was fixed to the halter on the river side to act as a blinker so that the horse would not shy from the water.

Two men took charge of the yawl and four others attended to the horses, guiding them along the tow path as they hauled the boat against the current. Haul marks were cut in places along the way and if the water rose above this height, as it would whenever the river was in flood after heavy rain, the horses had to be stopped because they could not contend with such a force of water. The skipper worked the tiller which had a yarn arm attached to it to provide greater leverage in guiding the yawl.“

Carrick-on-Suir from an old postcard collection. *Courtesy of Tipperary Studies, Tipperary County Council Library Service*.

“Work started at six in the morning when the cargo was transferred from the lighter to the yawl, which could hold from twenty to thirty tons. The hauling commenced at nine o’clock and it took five and a half hours to make the twelve miles to Clonmel. The horses were stabled and fed, and the cargo unloaded on to the dock. The yawl was poled (propelled) back with current (without the use of horses), taking two and a half hours to reach Carrick in the evening before seven, with a cargo of pigs, dairy produce, poultry, and grain.

When the horses were rested, they were trotted back by road to Carrick. It was a long day and strenuous work for men and beasts. The horses were treated well, fed on gruel, oats, and yellow meal (i.e., maize) and stabled comfortably. The haulers were specialists who were devoted to their work and the Davin family, to whom they gave a lifetime of service.

They were emotionally attached to the river and the life thereon. The depth of this feeling is illustrated in the last wish of a hauler: ‘Bury me in Churchtown where I can hear the creak of the yawlman’s tiller and the crack of the hauler’s whip.’ Churchtown cemetery, situated beside the river on the Waterford side, is the family burial ground of the Davins. The arrival of steam tugs on the river and the increase in the transport of goods by rail brought a decline in the hauling trade which the Davins abandoned in the early years of the 19^th century.“

Boxing was one of Maurice Davin’s early athletic pursuits, but he then changed direction, being drawn to what was his first love, the river, and its boats. In the early part of the nineteenth century, there was a great tradition of boat racing in Carrick. The annual regatta would have been a popular event, enjoying the sponsorship of the gentry. The regatta had become a casualty of the general depression that followed the great famine, with the last successful regatta being held in 1848. However, in 1863, Waterford revived its regatta and in subsequent years it became successful with a greater number of entries, including some from Carrick. This prompted Carrick to revive their own traditional regatta in 1865.

Maurice Davin developed a passion for rowing and was phenomenally successful and fully committed to the sport. He decided to build his own four-oared racing gig. It was named Cruiskeen Lawn, a name chosen by his mother. At the Waterford regatta in August 1871, the silver cup event was won by Cruiskeen, with Maurice as stroke, his brother Tom also in the crew and the cox was his other brother Pat. On the same day, the race for two-oared boats, known as wherries, was won by Maurice Davin’s Gypsy. Cruiskeen scored a lengthy list of successes at subsequent regattas at Clonmel, Carrick and Waterford. Even when he retired, his boat continued to have success with a new crew.

Maurice Davin’s first appearance at an athletic meeting as a competitor was in 1869 at Gurteen, near Kilsheelan, which came by chance. But within a brief period of time, Maurice and his two brothers, Tom, and Pat, were dominating Irish athletics and would do so for over a decade. In the 1870s, it was said that they had half the world’s records for running, jumping, hurdling, and weight-throwing. Maurice excelled in weight-throwing and through a series of major victories over leading British athletes, he achieved international fame.

But his love for rowing and his beloved Cruiskeen Lawn never diminished. In an interview with a New York newspaper, given in 1907, Maurice Davin said:

“I built the boat over 40 years ago. Somehow or other she was not a success… it was not my fault that she did not win at a regatta in Waterford in the sixties. I held onto her, I had faith in her, for she was a sweet boat. Last year I lengthened her bow a bit and the boys took her to this year’s regatta in Waterford and won. Now what do you think of that for a boat?”

When he gave this interview in 1907, Maurice Davin was sixty-five years old. The Tipperary Museum of Hidden History, in Clonmel, has noted that the interviewer remarked that he could have passed for a man twenty years younger.

Part of the Maurice Davin Exhibition on display at the Tipperary Museum of Hidden History, Clonmel. *Courtesy of Tipperary Museum of Hidden History*

Maurice Davin had great veneration for his boat, which is also referred to by its Irish name Crúiscín. It had given him immense pleasure over the years, and he could not see his way to having it broken up – hence his determination to keep it, in the hope that it would be appreciated at some time. It was hidden away in a cowshed on the farm at Deerpark for over one hundred years.

In 2005, Pat Walsh, a grandnephew of Maurice Davin was living at Deerpark and farming the land. He knew of the existence of the boat on the farm and made up his mind to donate it to the County Museum if they agreed to take it. Pat brought the existence of the boat to the attention of Shay Hurley of the Workman’s Boat Club in Irishtown, Clonmel. Shay was astonished at the beauty of the boat. He and his committee members very quickly came on board (no pun intended)realising the potential that it had to be conserved as a national treasure. They became leading figures in a project that received grant aid and sponsorship. The project saw the boat’s removal from the cowshed and arrived on May 17th, 2006, at the Conservation Centre in Letterfrack, Co Galway, under the direction of Sven Habermann, a historical object conservator. The boat came back to Clonmel on November 24^th, 2006, for permanent display in the museum. Michael Kennedy, a shipwright from Dunmore East was also heavily involved in the conservation work.

Maurice Davin’s *Cruiskeen* on display at the Tipperary Museum of Hidden History, Clonmel. *Courtesy of Tipperary Museum of Hidden History*

Around the same time in 2006 that the Cruiskeen was being conserved in Letterfrack, the Gaelic Athletic Association honoured Maurice Davin by renaming Croke Park’s Canal End, originally built in 1949, after the Association’s first-ever president. The stadium’s southern stand was re-constructed and re-opened in its current state in 2003.

Maurice Davin was unique amongst presidents of the GAA as he is the only man to have held two terms in office. He played a crucial role in steering the GAA through its turbulent initial period when its very survival was in doubt. For many years this was scarcely recognised.

He was a man of considerable moderation, and he believed in sport without boundaries and was opposed to banning GAA members from playing foreign games. This led to his resignation in February 1887 but an intervention from Archbishop Croke and a sustained clergy-led campaign brought him back to the presidency in January 1888. Following a second resignation in January 1889, he never again played a significant role in the GAA. Instead, his love of sport remained undimmed, and he took an active part in community affairs while continuing to promote Gaelic games at a local level. Seeing the need for a sports field in Carrick-on-Suir he developed an enclosed GAA pitch on the family farm where the 1904 All-Ireland Hurling Final was played.

Maurice Davin never married, and he died on January 27^th, 1927. Poignantly, he is buried close to his beloved river Suir at Churchtown graveyard on the Waterford bank of the river Suir, midway between Carrick-on-Suir and Kilsheelan in the parish of Dysart.

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Sources:

Séamus Ó Riain ‘Maurice Davin (1842 -1927): First president of the Gaelic Athletic Association’ , Geography Publications, 1994.

‘A Man and His Boat – MAURICE DAVIN’ by Marie McMahon, Curator, South Tipperary County Museum. This is an online document that may be accessed from a link on : https://www.hiddenhistory.ie/conservation-items/the-cruiskeen-project

‘Hear the Boat Sing’ website https://heartheboatsing.com/

Rowing’s Links to the Founders of the GAA and Ireland’s Oldest Rowing Boat?

Dictionary of Irish Biography: ( Contributor: Prof. Paul Rouse)

https://www.dib.ie/biography/davin-maurice-a2428

Video Links:

‘The remarkable life and times of Maurice Davin.’ This is a 24-minute interview by Joe Molloy of ‘Off the Ball’ with Professor Paul Rouse of UCD.

‘The Davin Boat.’ A 5-minute video with Damien Tiernan ( Now of WLRFM) visiting the cowshed at Deerpark.

‘The Cruiskeen – a river racer.’ A 36-minute video that documents the entire conservation project of restoring the Cruiskeen from Deerpark to Letterfrack where the conservation processes are explained. In addition, technical information on the boat is given and finally the journey back to Clonmel for permanent display is recorded.

Acknowledgements:

I would like to thank Dr Pat Bracken of Tipperary Libraries for his helpful advice when I began to research this story. Dr Bracken has written two books on the history of sport in Co Tipperary:‘The Growth and Development of Sport in County Tipperary, 1840-1880’ (2004) and ‘Foreign and Fantastic Field Sports: Cricket in County Tipperary’ (2018).

Many thanks to Dr Pat McCarthy for giving me access to his copy of ‘Maurice Davin (1842 -1927): First president of the Gaelic Athletic Association.,’ and to Mr Willie Nolan of Geography Publications for giving permission to transcribe the chapter entitled ‘River traders’, from the book.

Thank you also to Ms Jayne Sutcliffe, Documentation and Collections Officer, Tipperary Museum of Hidden History, Cultural Services, for all her assistance and to Dr Naomi Feely of Clonmel.

Historical Footnote:

Sven Habberman, the historical object conservator based in Connemara, was recently involved with another project with a nautical theme. This was the conservation of the ship’s cabin in which Sir Ernest Shackleton died. It was found as being used as a makeshift garden shed in Norway. The cabin was originally part of the Quest, the ship that Shackleton used on his final voyage. The Co Kildare explorer died of a heart attack on the island of South Georgia in the Southern Atlantic Ocean on January 5^th, 1922. Following conservation work by Sven Habberman and his team at Letterfrack, the cabin is on display in the Shackelton Museum, Athy, Co. Kildare.

28/08/202010/07/2024

Lighters and Lightermen

On a recent boating trip in the Suir, I spotted the rotting timbers of what appeared to be an old boat jutting out from under the low hanging branches of a sycamore tree. Further investigation revealed, what for me at least was, an amazing discovery. A once common workboat on the river, which numbered in the hundreds, but now totally extinct.

Introduction

Lighters were still in use up to the First World War, after which the coming of trucks eroded their work. But some elderly people have told me of seeing them working in the Second World War era, perhaps due to fuel shortages. I can not be certain when they originated, but as the size of freight ships increased and Waterford port expanded, these dependable workboats would lighten (and most probably load) vessels anchored at Passage and Cheekpoint for several hundreds of years. The need for the Lighters diminished only with the deepening of the Ford Channel, driven by the coming of steam power and ever larger ships.

Definition of a lighter

A lighter was a workboat employed in Waterford harbour and up the rivers Barrow and Suir. The function of this craft was as the name suggests, to lighten the load of incoming vessels, thereby allowing them to float over the sand and mud bars as they journeyed to New Ross or Waterford city. They functioned in much the same way the modern truck does.

According to the Dictionary of the World’s Watercraft the lighter can be described as “any small vessel employed in lightening goods. Describing it as a “…strongly built rectangular craft, open and flat-bottomed; used for short-haul work, especially for transferring cargo to and from a ship lying at anchor.” As to the origins it “…dates at least from the late 15th Century” In an Irish context it only names them in the SW of the country….”The River Shannon in the late 17th and early 18th Century was propelled by 4 men with 2 oars. Steered by a sweep. 12-16 ft long”

Design and build

The local design seems to have been very uniform in general, but size-wise there seems to have been local distinctions. 40-ton loads are regularly referred to in newspaper accounts and elsewhere, but 20, 25, and 30 were also mentioned. I imagine local conditions and purposes may have had an important role.

Patrick C Power in an article titled “The Lower Suir – boats and boatmen long ago” for the Tipperary Historical Journal (1991) gives this description from Carrick On Suir. “The lighters were built of pitch pine with a frame of oak. They were constructed on oaken frames each set about 3ft in the boat…The lighter was 70ft long and 16ft in the beam, but with a square stern and pointed prow. The sides could be as much as 4ft high…flat bottomed…without a keel. The rudder was 16ft long. Forward there was a well-room for bailing and on deck a caboose…where a fire was kept lighting in a cast iron box-stove supplied by Graham’s of Waterford…[there was] 36ft of useful cargo room…known to carry as much as 40 tons…distributed in two parts of the hold. There was no cargo in the centre of the lighter”

I would imagine that given the design was so basic these boats were built widely and locally in much the same way that punts and prongs were built at home in Cheekpoint. A local handyman or craftsman with a good eye would be supplied with the materials and the boat would emerge. Bill Irish lists five lighters coming out of Whites shipyard in Ferrybank but only one is given her size at 35-40 tons. No name was given for the boat. According to Pat Power, the Carrick lighters were made in Carrick Beg at the graving dock of the Kehoes. There was also a man named O’Brien who despite being illiterate could gauge the materials required for a build without ever having to measure, draw, or write.

Lighters above Redmond Bridge in Waterford

As regards the cost of building a lighter, there was a discussion at the Harbour Commissioners in March 1874 of the need for four new lighters to assist with port duties. These were estimated to cost £100. The article does not make clear, but I expect that is each. The cheapest of the five built at Whites shipyard cost £126-6-5

Propulsion

The lighters were sometimes referred to as dumb boats. They had no propulsion and depended on the tides and currents to get from A-B. I’m not sure dumb gives an accurate sense of their navigation, however. Anyone who has ever had to navigate the rivers knows that the vagaries of the tide, current, wind, rain, and moon play a huge role in the task. No day, indeed no hour is often the same and to simply push away from a riverbank and presume your destination would be both foolish and dumb.

The lighters had a rudder to help keep on course. According to Power it was operated by the skipper from his space in the well, it was used sparingly. The photograph above shows the rudder being operated from the stern. There was also an anchor that could be deployed in emergencies or when awaiting a favorable tide or weather. Two deckhands were also employed(I have read accounts with three men also in newspapers). Each operated a long oar (a sweep) which could be used to row the boat at specific times. They also used a pole to push along the river bed or bank. This was driven into the riverbed from the stern and then the crewman would have to clamber forward as he pushed the boat ahead. Some sources say a sail was used, but I have no description of this. I have recently seen a photo with a sail, but it seems to be jury rigged, more like a piece of canvas hung to catch a bit of wind, rather than a regular feature. Principally the crew worked with the tides, with a lifetime of river knowledge, drawing the most from each knot of an ebbing or flooding current to make their way.

Cargo

The lighters carried anything and everything that came into port. Unshipping, transhipping, and loading ships at anchor in the harbour up as far as Cheekpoint I’m sure. They delivered as far as New Ross or Clonmel and delivered into the villages, between the villages and from the villages to flour mills, coal stores, and lime kilns. The lighters seem to have been loaded and unloaded by their crew which must have been a back-breaking operation, but it also ensured that tight margins and any profit were kept onboard. An interesting example of the operation is a name associated with a quay on the Wexford side above Ballyhack. Tom Poor’s (Power?) quay is the local name, but another associated with it according to Tomás Sullivan is Lighterman’s Quay. The quay has an old roadway leading away from it back towards Ballyhack. A similar track can be found almost directly opposite at Lambert’s cove on the Waterford side.

Some images of the Lighter buried in the mud

Ironically its the mud that is probably helping to preserve the remaining timbers, or at least prolonging their integrity

An interesting anecdote from the newspapers of 1908 tells of “…two little boys named Patrick Kirby and James Grant who was charged with the larceny of a quantity of coal, the property of Messrs Wallace and McCullagh…Constable Thomas Ryan deposed that on the evening of the 21st November he found the defendants taking a quantity of coal from the lighter…” Having admitted to the constable that they were going to sell it, they were discharged under the First Offender’s Act.

They were also employed in providing ballast to sailing vessels. In 1842 I came across a tender presented to the Harbour Commissioners from R and W. Hayes for shipping ballast for five years. They agreed to deliver the ballast via their lighters to vessels in port at 8s per ton, and discharge ballast from vessels at 6s per ton.

Advert from Waterford Chronicle – Saturday 27th December 1831; page3

Lighters were also employed in river works such as dredging and I will share most of this interesting report from 1869 as there are some very telling details in it.

“ A report was read from Mr. Stephens, stating that little progress had been made at the ford works during the past month and that only 11 tons of rock had been raised since the last report. He further reported that he had taken up the four lighters belonging to the board from the contractors; that they were damaged state, and he repaired them. The board now had five lighters and eight punts capable of taking daily 350 tons of mud from the dredge…He further reported, in reference to the application from the sanitary committee of the corporation to clear John’s Pill…The nuisance arose from loading lighters of manure from dung yards adjacent to the pill, and the obstruction was caused stones and shingle…being dropped by these lighters in the vicinity…” Waterford Chronicle – Friday 15 October 1869; page 3

The Lightermen

But who were these Lightermen and how did they operate. Well, it appears that many companies and businesses had their own lighters and crews employed to act on their behalf. We have also seen that they were employed by the Harbour Commissioners on various duties though dredging seems to have been a major task. An interesting court case suggests however that even these men employed by the harbour board had certain freedom.

The case arose at a special jury hearing in the County Court by James O’Neill, of Arthurstown, against the Waterford Harbour Commissioners to recover £99, the value of a quantity of 105 barrels of oats and I07 sacks of barley containing 20 stone each lost by the stranding of a lighter on the Kilmanock Embankment in October the previous year, 1898.
The lighter, skippered by a man named Connolly, had arrived at Arthurstown on Monday evening 17th October 1898. They were obviously on the lookout for work and Connolly approached O’Neill and e asked him for the cargo at a price for transport at 2d. per barrel. This was stated to be the ordinary freight for corn. The deal was struck and the lighter was loaded on Friday 21st departing that evening as darkness settled. Later she was caught in a gale and grounded, causing the cargo to be damaged by water.

In evidence, Mr. John Ailingham, Secretary of the Harbour Board, explained that the Commissioners crew could take on other work when available to do so. This dated to a resolution passed in March. 1894. Two-fifths of the profits were generally paid into the Harbour Commissioners office. Since the accident happened a new rule was passed restraining their movements to not go below Cromwell’s Rock, or further up the river than Kilmacow Pill.

As regards the wages, one mention from a newspaper report in 1891 gave this insight: “THE LIGHTER SKIPPERS. The Quay Committee a recommendation to allow the lighter skippers 2s 6d a week, provided there were no complaints.” Whether there were complaints or not, I don’t know, but it gave no information as to the crew.

Many merchants probably had their own vessels employing their own crew as suggested by this advert in the Waterford Chronicle – Saturday 01 May 1841; page 3

It’s also likely that individuals or indeed families or crew invested in the trade. For example, there was a report in the Munster Express from December 1863 about a Carrick lighter which was lost in a gale in Waterford carrying freight for a man named Walsh. The crew survived but the paper concluded: “…It is hoped a subscription will be opened for the relief of the unfortunate men whose all may be said to have been invested in the lighter.”

Some of the characters of these men will be evident from what we have already learned, hard-working, resilient, impervious to the weather, and determined. Some other pieces from the newspapers of the time might put more meat on the bones.

In 1838 Morgan Doyle and William Nash were in court after a bare-knuckle fight aboard a lighter on Waterford Quays. A large crowd had gathered to watch the match and when the constabulary arrived, the men forgot their quarrel and working together let go the lighter, and shoved away from the quay to avoid the lawmen. They were subsequently apprehended, however, and found guilty of a breach of the peace.

In another situation, they were law-abiding. In February 1829 the crew of a Clonmel lighter observed bags being removed from a newly arrived schooner from St John’s, Newfoundland in suspicious circumstances. They raised the alarm with a Quay watchman, who instantly aroused the Tidewaiter (a member of the customs) from his bed. The bags were discovered to contain tobacco. A follow-up search discovered that the contraband had been hidden among a cargo of oil, and was that morning taken and put into bags, for transport. The mate and three of the crew were committed to gaol, but the Master was not with the ship at the time of the arrest.

Others were unfortunate, and there are many accounts of the crew falling over the side of their vessels and being drowned. For example on a cold wet Saturday night in November of 1864 a lighterman named Michael Meyler, was lost at Strangman’s Wharf. He was about 70 years of age and was in the habit of sleeping onboard lighter belonging to his brother. He slipped when boarding via the gangplank and despite efforts to save him, he was lost.

And then again others were just tough out. In May 1875 a case that was taken against James Doherty, a lighterman who cut a tow rope of the barque Constant that was being winched off the graving bank in Ferrybank. In court, the Captain of the barque was claiming damages of £20 against Doherty. It transpired that Doherty was coming up the quays just as the tide was starting to turn. In a hurry to make his berth he found the way blocked by the tow rope. Words were exchanged and tempers flared. As the barque would not release the tow rope, Doherty grabbed an axe and cut the hawser that blocked his path, before proceeding upriver. In a lengthy proceeding, it was found that the lighter had reacted hastily and the court found against Doherty for a much-reduced sum of £1. Doherty let it be known that he disagreed and would appeal.

End of the era

When the lighter’s reign in the harbour ended is not very clear. But the improvements in navigation including the opening of the Ford and the deepening of the river after the Harbour Commissioners came into existence must have been a crucial factor. The arrival of steam-driven vessels must have also played a part. Further upriver, the coming of the railways and improvements in road transport would have contributed to the undermining of transport by water.

Triton, the marine correspondant with the Munster Express had a lovely article in 1973 which drew on the memories of a previous marine correspondant Jimmy Hartery. It highlights that lighters were still in use in the first world war.

Munster Express. Friday 28th December 1973; Page 12

a lone lighter above Redmond Bridge circa 1950s via Brendan Grogan. Might this be the last of a proud tradition? It would appear that it is being used by workmen, perhaps on some maintenance duties with the harbour commissioners.

The wreck that I found that afternoon on the river, is to the best of my knowledge the only remains of a lighter that worked the river for centuries. In a way, it’s a shame that such a vessel would be left to rot away into the mud. And yet ironically, if it had not been abandoned where it was, it must certainly have rotted completely away. If anyone knows anyone in maritime archaeological circles that might have an interest in taking measurements and recording the vessel, tell them to get in touch. As such it might be the only such measurements to exist? I would also appreciate any further written details on the Lighter, particularly on the build or the propulsion.

The Lighters – work boats of the River Suir

For more detail on the trade of the lighters between Waterford, Carrick On Suir and Clonmel, here’s a previous guest blog Leslie Dowley

Barrow Navigation Company

For more on the New Ross and River Barrow trade, a story of mine from 2018