Harbour Life - Page Two

"This is the Pilot Boat, Betty Breen, before her launch in 1952. The picture comes from the Maritime Magazine and Import and Export Gazette, published in the Spring of 1952. Thank you to David Carroll for making this available. The piece below is from the magazine article."

A NEW PILOT BOAT FOR WATERFORD

THE BETTY BREEN

From John Tyrrell & Sons’ Yards.

At the yard of John Tyrrell and Sons, of Arklow, a new pilot boat was recently completed to the order of the Waterford Harbour Commissioners. “Betty Breen” as she is named, is 50 ft. in length overall, with a beam of 14 ft., a draught of 6 ft. and a displacement of 33 tons. It will be noted that she has the distinctive Tyrrell stem.

The boat is planked in larch on grown oak frames, with Oregon pine decks. The wheelhouse, companionways, skylights and hatches are of teak, and mahogany has been largely used in the accommodation.

The engine installation consists of a pair of 3LW Gardner Diesel engines, rated at 36 h.p. each at 1,200 r.p.m. They are equipped with 2-1 reduction gears and drive three-bladed propellers of 26 ins. diameter. The stern gear and propellers are of Bruntons manufacture.

Hydraulic remote control to the engines is arranged in the wheelhouse, where there is a full set of gauges and tachometers. Duplicate oil and water gauges are provided in the engine room. The engines are fitted with electric and hand starting equipment.

A Giljector pump, driven by the port engine is employed for pumping the bilges and for deck washing. The fuel capacity is 300 gallons, and 50 gallons of lubricating oil are carried.

Electric lighting is provided throughout the boat and there is a set of oil lamps for emergency use.

On trial, a mean speed of 9 knots was attained. The vessel was run satisfactorily for 6 hours at full speed and manoeuvring was found to be very satisfactory.

On completion, the boat was named by Miss Betty Breen, daughter of the chairman of Waterford Harbour Commissioners. The vessel made the passage from Arklow to Dunmore East, where she is based, in 8 hours, under very unfavourable weather conditions with a strong southerly wind and heavy sea.

Here is the Betty Breen being trialled in the Irish Sea before setting off for Dunmore East, her new home. She was always thought to be one of the best looking boats in the dock.

This is the pilot boat Betty Breen, moored in the dock at Dunmore in the early 1960s. She was launched from Tyrrell’s boatyard in Arklow in October 1951 and came straight to Dunmore, where she remained on duty until 1993, becoming a familiar and reassuring sight in the harbour for more than forty years.

Named after Betty Breen, daughter of Martin S. Breen, chairman of the Harbour Board at the time, she represented a new chapter for pilotage in Waterford Harbour. With her arrival, the use of the pilot station at Passage was discontinued and the pilots began making the complete journey from Dunmore to Waterford with every ship.

Tucker Burke recalls: "I was coxswain of the Betty Breen for 20 years, she was a great weather boat." 

Over the decades she worked in all kinds of weather, day and night, carrying generations of pilots safely to and from the vessels under their care. For many locally, the steady presence of the Betty Breen at her moorings or heading out past the breakwater was part of the rhythm of daily life, as much a feature of the harbour as the lighthouse or the cliffs themselves.

"The following is based on a passage from David Carroll's book, Dauntless Courage. Thanks to David for the original photo as well."

Fanny Harriet: A Lifeboat and a Moment in Time:

Some lifeboats serve quietly for decades, their names fading gently into station records and annual returns. Others, by circumstance rather than design, are bound forever to a single moment — a few days when the sea demanded everything, and ordinary men answered without hesitation. The lifeboat Fanny Harriet, stationed at Dunmore East in the early years of the twentieth century, belongs firmly to the latter.

When she arrived in Dunmore East on 21 September 1911, Fanny Harriet was a modern boat by the standards of her time. Built by the Thames Ironworks Company, she was a self-righting vessel, thirty-seven feet in length with a beam of nine feet three inches, fitted with water ballast tanks and drop-keels to steady her in heavy seas. She replaced the Henry Dodd, which had served the station since 1884, and her arrival was part of the steady evolution of lifeboat provision along the Irish coast rather than a local event of any great ceremony.

Her name came not from the sea, nor from Dunmore East, but from Bath in England. Miss F. H. Roe, whose bequest funded the provision of a lifeboat, requested that it bear the name Fanny Harriet. It was an act of quiet philanthropy, one of many that sustained the Royal National Lifeboat Institution at the time. By 1911, the RNLI managed 283 lifeboats, thirty-five of them stationed along the Irish coast, where they were already rendering invaluable service in saving life from shipwreck.

For the men of Dunmore East, however, Fanny Harriet was not a symbol or a statistic. She was a working boat, crewed by neighbours, relatives and friends — men whose lives were shaped by tide, weather and seasonal labour. Her reported cost of £1,107 placed her among the more substantial investments of the Institution, but her true value would only become clear under conditions no one would have wished for.

In fact, Fanny Harriet would be stationed at Dunmore East for less than three years and would be launched on active service only once. Yet that single service, carried out in February 1914, would ensure that her name lived on not only in RNLI annals, but in the memory of coastal communities far beyond Waterford.

The story begins on Friday, 20 February 1914, when the Norwegian schooner Mexico ran into trouble in Bannow Bay, off the Wexford coast. The Mexico was a three-masted, steel-hulled vessel, bound for Liverpool from Laguna in Mexico, carrying a crew of ten. Caught in a fierce gale, she was driven ashore on the Keeragh Islands, a mile off the coast — a remote, exposed reef where even in calm weather landing was hazardous.

News of the grounding reached the lifeboat station at Fethard-on-Sea, and within a short time the lifeboat Helen Blake was launched. What followed remains one of the most tragic episodes in Irish maritime rescue history. As Helen Blake neared the stricken schooner, she was struck by a heavy and unexpected sea which filled her completely. Driven ashore, she struck the rocks and broke apart. Of the fourteen men aboard, nine were swept to their deaths. Five survived with great difficulty, reaching the South Keeragh Island, while one other was hauled aboard the Mexico itself.

Lines were eventually secured between the schooner and the rocks, allowing the surviving sailors and one lifeboatman to reach a place of relative safety. But safety was a fragile concept. For three days, the survivors remained exposed to freezing cold, sleet, hail and rain, clinging to the rocks as the storm continued unabated.

As news of the disaster spread, lifeboats from neighbouring stations were called upon. From Dunmore East came Fanny Harriet; from Kilmore Quay, The Sisters; and from Wexford, James Stevens. A tug from Wexford also joined the effort. What followed was not a single dramatic rescue, but a prolonged ordeal marked by frustration, danger and persistence.

At nine o’clock on Saturday morning, word reached Dunmore East that assistance was required. Half an hour later, Fanny Harriet was launched under Coxswain Walter Power, with a crew of twelve men. By early afternoon she had reached the Keeragh Islands. Approaching cautiously, the crew backed into shallow water, but the wash on the shore was severe. It was impossible to communicate with the survivors, let alone attempt a landing. For three hours the lifeboat remained at anchor, her crew watching helplessly as waves broke against the rocks where men clung for their lives. Eventually, with nothing more that could safely be done, Fanny Harriet proceeded to Fethard, there to await another opportunity.

Two of the Mexico’s crew, Paulsen and Smith, attempted escape in the ship’s own lifeboat and were swept by the gale onto Cullenstown Strand, where they were hauled ashore in an exhausted condition. For the others, the wait continued.

As the seriousness of the situation became clear, the RNLI’s Chief Inspector of Lifeboats, Commander Thomas Holmes RN, was dispatched from London. He travelled through the night, arriving at Fethard on Sunday afternoon. Earlier that day, at four o’clock, Fanny Harriet again put to sea, this time with Commander Holmes on board. Conditions had moderated slightly, but not enough. Once again, the lifeboat was unable to reach the survivors and was forced to return.

It was only on Monday morning that a breakthrough came. An attempt was made to send an unmanned dinghy towards the island, but it was smashed by the sea. Eventually, a connection was made using a rocket and line. Two men from the Fethard crew, John Kelly and John McNamara, were hauled through the water by line and lifebuoy, a perilous passage that demanded enormous strength and resolve. The Dunmore East lifeboat Fanny Harriet succeeded in rescuing these two stranded lifeboatmen.

Tragically, not all survived the ordeal. Antonio Luis da Cunha, a twenty-two-year-old Portuguese sailor from the Mexico, died on the island from exposure before rescue could reach him.

Later that morning, the Wexford lifeboat returned, towed by the tug, bringing with it a strong punt. Two of the Wexford crew, William Duggan and James Wickham, volunteered to man it. Time and again, they worked the small craft close to the rocks, hauling men aboard and being pulled back to the lifeboat. During the second trip, the punt was stove in on the rocks. With remarkable ingenuity, the hole was stuffed with a loaf of bread and packing, and the rescue continued. In five trips, all remaining survivors — ten men in total — were brought safely off the rocks.

When the work was finally done, the tug took the lifeboats in tow. The five surviving Fethard men and Commander Holmes were landed at Fethard. Fanny Harriet rejoined the tug and was dropped back at Dunmore East, while the Wexford lifeboat continued to Waterford with seven of the Mexico’s crew. Thousands lined the quays to welcome them — a rare public moment in a service more often defined by anonymity.

Today, the name Fanny Harriet endures not because of the length of her service, but because of the weight of that one moment. She stands as a reminder that history is sometimes shaped not by years of activity, but by a few decisive days, and by men who answered the call because it was theirs to answer.

Crew of the Lifeboat Fanny Harriet

(as listed in the Return of Service for the rescue)

Walter Power (Coxswain)

William Power (Second Coxswain)

Patrick Power (Bowman)

Pat Brown

Michael Power

Thomas Power

William Bond

Philip Myler

Patrick Myler

George Cunningham

William Burke

Patrick Power

James Donovan 

There are some vessels that pass through a harbour and are forgotten as soon as their wash settles. Others linger in the mind, returning again and again, slow and inevitable, until they become part of the furniture of childhood itself. The dredger Sisyphus belonged firmly to the second category.

Built in 1905 and operated by the Office of Public Works, she was already an old lady by the time the children of the 1950s first began to measure their summers by her arrival. Yet age seemed only to suit her. She did not hurry. She came and went with a patience that suggested she had all the time in the world, which, to a boy looking down on the pier with a day to fill, felt about right.

You might hear her before you properly saw her: the steady clank and grind of machinery, the bucket ladder rising and falling with the solemn rhythm of work that could not be rushed. Then she would edge into view beyond the harbour mouth, practical, purposeful, utterly indifferent to whether anyone admired her or not.

But admire her we did.

To young eyes she was magnificent — not in the way of a liner or a naval vessel, but in the complicated, mechanical way that invited study. There were gears to puzzle over, wires and gantries, crewmen moving about with the quiet assurance of men who knew their business. She seemed less like a ship and more like a floating factory, intent on chewing up the seabed and spitting it somewhere else.

Older residents understood her importance better than the village children did. Dunmore East has always been a harbour that demanded attention. Left to itself, the sea would patiently rearrange things, nudging sand and silt back into the very channels that men had cleared. Without the dredger’s regular visits, boats would sit where they ought to float, and trade would falter. Sisyphus was, in her unglamorous way, a guardian of the place.

She made regular visits to Dunmore through the 1950s and well into the 1960s. There is even a sketch made in July 1960 showing her at work, which proves that memory has not embroidered the story too wildly. By 1969 she was still busy, deepening approaches for the newer harbour works, carrying on the same endless battle between engineering and tide.

Of course I rarely thought about silt or tonnage. What stayed with me was the scale of her, the noise, the sense of industry. A visit from the dredger meant something was happening. You might cycle down for a look in the morning and come back after tea to find she had shifted position like a grazing animal, methodically working her patch.

Even when she lay quiet, tied up between spells of labour, she held the eye. There was a dignity about her, a tired competence. She had done this yesterday, and would do it tomorrow, and had likely been doing it since before any of us were born.

In time she went the way of such vessels, as all working ships must. But mention her name today and watch what happens. Faces soften. Someone will recall the sound. Another will remember the crew. A third will be certain he can still picture the buckets rising, dripping, in the sun.

And for a moment, the old dredger steams back into the harbour once more, faithful as ever, ready to begin again.

Here we see a group of children playing on what was known as the Plot, which overlooked the harbour. It was taken during the summer holidays, possibly in the early to mid-1960s.

The photo features Dave, Geoff, Jane, Karen and Ivan Harris, along with their cousins, the Woodleys, who were visiting from England on holidays. Geoff also thought that some of the Davis children may be in the picture as well — Andrew, Nelson and Sarah.

The quay wasn't all about fishermen and yachtsmen, sometimes people with other talents went down on the pier too, possibly for inspiration. Here we see Pat Cooksey, Eamon Power and Gerry Power standing there, being inspired, during the early 1980s. Pat Cooksey was living in the village at the time, one of the many talented musicians to have passed through or settled in Dunmore over the years. It is quite possible that Gerry was the main attraction, as word of his legendary guitar playing would have travelled far beyond the harbour walls.

Pat Cooksey was also a gifted songwriter. One of his best-known songs, “The Reason I Left Mullingar,” has been recorded by many artists over the years. Pat wrote the song in 1980 for The Fureys, and it is dedicated to the thousands of Irish building workers who migrated to London during the mid-1970s in search of employment. The song perfectly captures the homesickness, uncertainty and emotional struggles faced by those who left their towns and families behind, hoping for a better future.

This photograph captures the harbour in Dunmore East as it appeared many years ago, possibly during the 1930s. The calm waters, moored boats, and surrounding landscape offer a quiet glimpse of the village at the time. The image has been restored from an old print, it may have originally been a postcard. While the exact date of the photograph is unknown to me, it remains a valuable visual record of the old harbour. 

"This is a colourised version of a photograph of the lifeboat Annie Blanche Smith, dating from the 1940s. She was involved in a callout on the night of 4 February 1942, which ended up in the High Court the following year in a case concerning salvage rights. The Munster Express of the 26th of February 1943 reported on the case:"

DUNMORE MEN’S ACTION:

CLAIM FOR £5,000 FOR SALVAGE SERVICES

Before Mr. Justice Overend in the High Court, Dublin, on Thursday, with Captain J. H. Webb sitting as a nautical assessor, Nicholas Madigan, Daniel Murphy, Patrick and Jeff Power, John Roche, Thomas McGrath and Richard Murphy, of Dunmore East, members of the crew of the Dunmore East lifeboat, brought an action against the owner of the steam trawler Gozo for £5,000 for salvage services rendered by them to the Gozo on February 4th and 5th of last year.

The plaintiffs stated that on the night of February 4th, owing to compass trouble, the trawler entered Tramore Bay and ran ashore on the rocks near the Rabbit Burrow. She was laden with fish. The Gozo sent out distress signals and, upon receiving the call, the lifeboat put out from Dunmore East.

On arrival, the plaintiffs found her in shallow water and, following a signal message, stood by all night. At 6 a.m. they went alongside and interviewed the skipper, who asked them to give assistance in getting the trawler off. They worked at her until the falling tide at 11 a.m., with a kedge anchor, a hawser attached to the Gozo’s steam winches, and at one stage a wire towing rope was attached to the lifeboat in an endeavour to get the trawler off the shore.

These operations did not succeed, and the lifeboat proceeded to Dunmore, having first placed a kedge anchor and wire in position for salvage operations at the next tide.

The plaintiffs further stated that in Dunmore instructions were received by telephone from the trawler’s owners to do everything necessary to save her. With that assurance, John McGrath returned to Tramore at 3 p.m. The Gozo was then firmly embedded in the sand, high and dry, and persons had rested bicycles against her. He and two others boarded her. He arranged for the trawler’s crew, assisted by some of the plaintiffs, to dig the sand away from her side and, before the tide rose, the sand was cleared from one side.

At 8 p.m. an attempt was made to drag the Gozo off the beach by means of the drifter Fast Britain, which the plaintiffs had hired for the occasion, the lifeboat, and the cable attached to his kedge anchor. At 10.15 p.m. these operations had made little or no headway. Then, as the result of an operation carried out by John McGrath on the Gozo, she slewed round and, having thus freed herself, the plaintiffs managed to tow her off the beach. The operations were carried out in darkness. The Gozo was then towed to Dunmore East harbour.

The defendants, in their defence, denied the allegations of the plaintiffs and pleaded that, if the lifeboat rendered any service, it was in the nature of life-saving service and was not a proper salvage service. They also pleaded that any services rendered by John McGrath were upon their (the defendants’) instructions and did not entitle him, or the other plaintiffs, to salvage rights for work and labour.

John McGrath, a member of the lifeboat crew, said that in his view the trawler went aground because of compass trouble and that when he went aboard her the captain asked him where exactly he was and whether they could give any assistance in getting her off.

Asked if sightseers came along the strand to see the trawler and rested their bicycles against her side, he said that he saw one bicycle leaning against the trawler the following day. He did not think the trawler could now be bought for £15000, considering that the earning power of trawlers was now about £2000 a week. 

Mr. Justice Overend made his award on Thursday. Nine of the crew are to share £540 out of £810, and the Fast Britain, which assisted with a tug, will receive £270. Costs were also allowed.

The original black-and-white version of this photo, dating from 1958, featured in the Barony of Gaultier Historical Society’s 2021 calendar. I obtained it from their Facebook page. The photo was taken by Patsy Power’s nephew, Tommy Harrison, who also developed and printed it. It was supplied to the BGHS by Kevin Power, Patsy’s son.

In the photo, from the left, are Tommy Mullally, R.I.P.; John Dunne; John Quilty, R.I.P.; and Patsy Power, R.I.P. They were working for the Board of Works at the time.

These men are, Jack Whittle, John Glody, Tommy McGrath and Mossie McGrath, photographed on the pier in Dunmore, probably during the 1940s.

This colourised photograph, dating from the 1930s, shows a ketch-type yacht and a pilot cutter off Dunmore East Pier, but it records neither the date nor the names of the vessels. Given how far offshore they are, it is quite likely that the photographer was unable to identify them.

One can only make an educated guess as to the identity of the two vessels. The ketch yacht appears to be over seventy feet in length. That would rule out Colleen, the 37.5 ft yacht of Richard Wall Morris of Villa Marina, which would still have been one of the larger local yachts of that time.

We are told that Sir Thomas Myles was a regular visitor to Dunmore East during this period. He was a keen yachtsman and owned several interesting and famous vessels during his lifetime. Was he the owner of the large yacht?

Sir Thomas Myles (1857–1937) was described as a larger-than-life surgeon in Edwardian Dublin. He received his knighthood in King Edward VII’s Coronation Honours List in 1902, and in 1910 he was appointed Honorary Surgeon to the King in Ireland. However, this did not prevent him from continuing to support the National movement. In 1914, he offered his motor yacht Chotah to the Irish Volunteers for the purpose of gun-running, having been greatly annoyed by Sir Edward Carson’s importation of arms into Larne for the Ulster Volunteers.

Myles was a good friend of Erskine Childers, another keen yachtsman. The plan was that Childers and Conor O’Brien would use their yachts, Asgard and Kelpie, to bring guns from Germany into Ireland, with Childers landing at Howth and O’Brien at Kilcoole, Co. Wicklow. However, because O’Brien was a well-known Nationalist and may have been under surveillance, the 600 guns carried by Kelpie towards Ireland were transferred, in the shelter behind St Tudwal’s Island off the coast of North Wales, onto Myles’s Chotah. This pillar of the establishment then brought them ashore at midnight on 1 August 1914 at Kilcoole, just days before Europe went to war and, ironically, before he was appointed Consulting Surgeon to the British Forces in Ireland with the rank of Lieutenant-Colonel in the Royal Army Medical Corps.

Chotah was a yacht based on the classic cutter-rigged Brixham trawler type. She was 60 ft long, fitted with an engine, and built by S. Dewdney & Sons of Brixham in 1891. After Chotah, Sir Thomas Myles bought a yacht called Faith, and later a magnificent yacht called Sheila, which had originally been commissioned by Queen Victoria as a birthday present for her son-in-law, Prince Henry of Battenberg. This beautiful yacht was driven onto the rocks off the Isle of Man in June 1933, and Sir Thomas was lucky to escape with his life.

The 1935 Lloyd’s Yacht Register records Sir Thomas as the owner of Harbinger, an auxiliary ketch described as “the finest of her class afloat”.

This was to be Sir Thomas’s last yacht. He was then seventy-eight years of age. When he died on 14 July 1937, his house in Leeson Park, Dublin, was valued at £2,050, while his yacht was estimated to be worth £2,725.

The pilot cutter is believed to be the Waterford Harbour Commissioners’ Elsie J, which was based at Dunmore East from c. 1932 until the early 1940s, when the Lily Doreen came on station. Very little is known about Elsie J, but it is quite likely that she had originally been built as a Brixham smack, one of the famous sailing trawlers that were often converted to other uses, including pilot cutters.

So, from the above, and assuming that Harbinger and Elsie J are indeed the two vessels photographed, which is by no means certain, the photograph was most likely taken during the summers of 1935 or 1936.

"Thank you to David Carroll for supplying the photograph and information for this post."

There’s something about the Dunmore East Regatta of 1962 that seems to stand a little taller than the rest. Perhaps it was the occasion of it—the centenary year—or maybe it was simply that the whole village, as it often did, rose to meet the moment.

One photograph from that summer captures it nicely. Two figures, fancifully dressed and clearly enjoying themselves, are thought to be Ken Buggy and his sister Min. They took part in the fancy dress boats and did rather well for themselves—second place in the best dressed category, and winners of the “Most Original Item” with their clever “Regatta 1862–1962” entry. 

The regatta itself, first held in 1862, had already been marked out as something special long before that day arrived. The Waterford News & Star, in its report of August 3rd, 1962, noted how the event had endured through “many difficulties and vicissitudes,” yet was carried forward year after year by the people of the village with what they called admirable courage and enterprise.

To mark that unbroken link over a hundred years, the newspaper presented a perpetual trophy for the principal event, the Enterprise Class Race, scheduled for 5 p.m. on regatta day. And the Enterprise class itself was something of a talking point. Only introduced four years earlier, it had already grown at an astonishing rate, with over 9,000 boats built. Recognisable by their blue Terylene sails, they were affordable, practical, and increasingly popular. In Ireland alone there were over 120, spread across some fifteen centres, and they had already drawn strong fleets from Belfast Lough, Strangford Lough, Dublin Bay, Cork Harbour, Baltimore, Fenit and Malahide at the Skerries championships.

There was also a strong sense of continuity in the organisation of the 1962 event. The committee, chaired by Mr. R. J. Farrell, carried deep family ties to the regatta’s earliest days. His father, Austin Farrell, had been one of its most active organisers. The same could be said for the families of Milo Galgey and Roger Shipsey, whose fathers and grandfathers had served before them. And then there was young Liam Murphy, just twenty years of age and a student in U.C.C., representing a fourth generation connection. His father, Dick Murphy, had been secretary for ten years, his grandfather John Murphy for twenty, and his great-grandfather Nicholas Murphy had been one of the original organisers back in 1862. Dunmore was that kind of place—nothing ever quite started or ended with one person.

The wider committee read like a roll call of the harbour and village: Dr. P. F. O’Sullivan, E. O. Blunden, A. Westcott-Pitt of the Lifeboat Committee, Harbour Master Capt. D. P. Carroll, William Lawlor (junr.), H. N. Nevins, S. Whittle, John Keating, Rev. M. Power, W. Westcott-Pitt, N. J. O’Connell, Rev. E. D. H. Slator, George Chapman, Capt. C. H. Hazell, and P. J. Dowley as treasurer.

The programme itself was as full as anyone could wish for. The day was to begin with speedboat and water-ski displays, followed by everything from model yacht racing and rowing to outboard motor races, pillow fights, swimming events, fancy dress boats, duck hunts, dinghy races and children’s junk races. The Waterford Harbour Sailing Club organised the keel boat races, while the St. Patrick’s Brass Band provided the soundtrack to it all. Prizes were presented in the Fisherman’s Hall, and the day finished, as it should, with a regatta dance to the music of the Arcadian Quartet.

For those coming from the city, there was even a special bus laid on—leaving the Clock Tower at 11 a.m., with continuous services in the afternoon and evening. Nothing was left to chance.

Well, almost nothing.

Because, as often happens in Ireland, the weather had its say. A cloudburst interrupted proceedings and about a quarter of the programme had to be postponed until August 19th. It was an inconvenience, but not enough to dampen the spirit of the thing.

The sailing, when it came, more than made up for it.

The Ballymacaw Cup race saw a fleet of fifteen boats take to a 5½ mile course—five Enterprises, three Herons, and seven other sailing boats. A strong south-westerly wind drove them out from the dock, sending them running before the wind towards the Councillors Strand Buoy, then on a broad reach past Laweesh Rocks, before turning into a hard beat back towards the Pier in two-foot waves.

At the start, R. de Courcey in Gay Imp took the lead, followed closely by D. Morris in Speedwell. But it was D. McBride in Whisper who made the decisive move, slipping through at the third mark after a neat gybe and holding the lead to the finish, winning by a clear fifteen lengths. N. Colfer also impressed, bringing his I.L.R.A. 14-footer home in fourth place ahead of two Enterprise dinghies.

On handicap, the honours went to Mrs. Pat Nugent in Crocus, followed by McBride in Whisper, and Col. Robin Gabbett in Widget.

Later, the Enterprise Trophy Race—run over the same course—drew a strong entry despite earlier postponements. Boats came not only from Dunmore but from Wexford and Cork. It was the first year Enterprises had raced in Waterford Harbour, and they justified their reputation—fast, light, and easy to handle, with their plywood construction making them ideal for local conditions.

Six of these boats were already based in Dunmore, most of them built, at least in part, by their owners over the previous winter. So successful were they that it was confidently predicted they would soon replace the older Dunmore Class and I.D.R.A. 14-footers.

The race itself drew a large crowd to the Pier, where spectators followed every move with the help of commentary from J. Farrell, J. Moir and N. Baker. The wind freshened, crews worked hard, but there were no capsizes.

R. Jephson, sailing Laweesh with D. Brazil, took the lead early and held it, eventually winning by 65 seconds. P. Corcoran of Wexford finished second in Cormorant, with de Courcey’s Gay Imp taking third.

There were moments of drama too. McBride’s Whisper, sailing strongly and challenging for second, was forced to retire after a collision with Gay Imp on a starboard tack—one of those incidents that sailors remember long after the race itself.

And then there was something new on the horizon—the “Gremlin” class. A small dinghy designed for beginners, inexpensive at around £25 to build and equip, and already attracting younger sailors who were racing twice weekly in Dunmore. It was seen, even then, as a sign that the future of sailing in the village was in safe hands.

Looking back now, the 1962 regatta feels like a meeting point of past and future. A hundred years of history behind it, and yet full of new ideas, new boats, and new generations stepping forward.

And somewhere in the middle of it all, Ken and Min Buggy in their costumes, smiling for the camera—reminding us that for all the racing and organisation, the regatta was, above everything else, about people enjoying themselves by the sea.

This colourised photo features three well-known Dunmore men: Bertie McNamara, Maurice Power, and Rocky Power, on board the Lydia Ann. The picture was originally uploaded by Claire Hogan, R.I.P., to the I Am Dunmore Facebook page. It was taken in Dungarvan Harbour, and Claire acquired it from her brother, Kevin Downes. The original photo used to be in the Maritime Museum at the Fort in Duncannon, but sadly the museum is now closed.

The original black and white version of this photo was uploaded by Maura Furlong Power to the I Am Dunmore Facebook page. It features Ned Power’s boat, the Undaunted, to which I think I have given the correct colour. The other boat is the Golden Quest, owned by Billy Butler Power. Thanks to Maura for uploading the original photo.

This photo dates from the early 1960s and shows a Dutch coaster being loaded with barrels of herring bound for the Continent. Two men of note, Mikey Dalton and Billy Hearne, “the Saint,” can be seen standing on the quayside. Billy is behind Mikey and has a cigarette in his mouth.

I’d say the two men to the right of Mikey Dalton are Micky Joe Robinson and Johnny O’Grady. Johnny has his back to the camera. I’m basing this on a previous photo of the same ship being loaded, most likely on the same day. This photo originated with Joe Teasdale and was sent to me by David Carroll.

The coaster Vechtborg had many names over her lifetime. She was built in 1961 by Apol at Appingedam as Vechtborg for N.V. Wagenborg’s Scheepvaart. In 1972, she became Esperance of D. P. Gueze, and in 1973 Noordster of K. B. Bos. She joined Derick Goubert in 1985 and became Mary Coast. In 1990, she was sold to Naviera Compasion de l’Eternal S. de R.L. of Honduras as Compasion de l’Eternal. In 1991, she moved to Argo Maritime of Belize as Key Biscayne, and in 1993 she joined Alavar Maritime, also of Belize, initially as Splash, though in 1995 she reverted to Key Biscayne. Later that year, she was sold to Inversiones Richell Inc. of Honduras as Richell Valeria, but was deleted from the register on 12 January 2012.

"Thanks to David Carroll for the photo."

This photo was once used as a postcard, showing a grand parade of sailboats in the harbour at Dunmore East, probably in the early 1950s. The message on the back reads as follows, although I could not make out the date:

“I have managed to get as far as here and am having wonderful weather. I am writing this while sunbathing on this lovely beach. But I have to return to Knock today. We may arrive back on Wednesday.”

The address appears to read: Miss Willard, Tunbridge Nursing Home, Tunbridge, Kent, England.

“When I posted the previous photo of this scene, I wasn’t aware of what was going on. David Carroll cleared up the mystery by sending me an online article published on the Afloat.ie website in 2021. The photo here differs from the postcard, with more boats tied up along the pier. The piece below is adapted from the Afloat.ie article, written by William M Nixon.”

Everything indicates that the photo here depicts an early IDRA Dinghy Week at Dunmore East, which would place it in either 1950 or 1955. The best guess is that it was taken in 1950, when Teddy Crosbie won the Helmsman’s Championship, racing in the hot new boats of the IDRA 14 class, which celebrated their 75th anniversary in 2021.

They spent that week in 1950 afloat on temporary moorings, something designer O’Brien Kennedy had been asked to make, as clubs such as Waterford Harbour SC at Dunmore East had very little in the way of dinghy parks or their own launching slips.

That said, WHSC were well up to speed with IDRA 14s and with their own class of National 18s, built to the Yachting World-sponsored Uffa Ace design of 1938. In the photo, there are a handful of them berthed at the quayside to the right.

But of course the eye-catching focus of the entire picture is Aylmer Hall’s 1929-vintage, Charles E. Nicholson-designed, Camper & Nicholsons-built 12 Metre, Flica, the Queen of Cork Harbour, where they still talk in hushed tones of the time she was dismasted during the Cobh People’s Regatta. It certainly was an awful lot of mast to come tumbling down, and equally it seemed unclimbable without assistance.

That made it a useful challenge. In Dunmore East in those days, the three McBride brothers from Waterford — Oweny, Davy and Denny — were inescapable features of the summer sailing scene, and Davy got himself aboard Flica, where he was soon delivering contentious opinions in the classic Davy style. So, to get themselves some peace, Flica’s ship’s company challenged him to climb the mast.

He did better than that. Instead of shimmying up the spar itself, he went up the forestay hand over hand, then scrambled up the last bit of the mast to the masthead itself. Then he came down the backstay hand over hand, and barely paused for breath before resuming telling the Corkmen why Dunmore East and its sailors were infinitely superior to anything Cork Harbour could hope to offer.

Alas, Davy McBride is no longer with us, and Flica is barely hanging on by a thread. It was around 2013 that she was found in a shed at Birdham Pool on Chichester Harbour, paralysed in a very stalled restoration project. Since then, she has more or less been evicted from Sussex, and was last heard of about a year ago, looking very sorry indeed in a field in Essex.

It would be a miracle if some philanthropist with bottomless pockets were to take her on for one of those zillion-euro 12 Metre restorations in which classic boatbuilders Robbe & Berking, on the Danish-German border, specialise. For our header photo reminds us of a simpler time when Irish sailing was more cohesive, all the boats were beautiful, Dinghy Week would see the cruiser fleets coming along to provide accommodation for the small-boat racers, and everyone knew everyone else.

This photo of the Golden Feather, owned by John Roche, was taken in Ballycotton in 1978. Joe Taylor was the skipper at the time with Billy Taylor, Ray Power and Brendan Glody as crew. Ray Power’s car can be seen parked on the quayside, having made the high speed journey from Dunmore.

"Thank you to John Archer for sending the photo on to me."

This colourised picture, taken on the quay in Dunmore, dates from the early 1950s.

The white motor launch that the group are looking at was called Intava, and it was owned by George Nolan, a well-known Waterford solicitor at the time. The name still survives in a legal firm in Waterford. The boat would have been converted from a Royal Navy steel-hulled coastal patrol vessel. These were sold off cheaply after the war, and George Nolan must have bought one. The wags in the local sailing circles christened it Tintava because of the steel hull. They would have looked down on any boat that wasn't made of wood.

The Lydia Ann, owned at the time by Ned Power, can also be seen in the picture, along with the Betty Breen down near the lighthouse. One of John Roche’s boats is tied up in his usual berth. John had a number of boats over the years, so I’m not sure which one this is.

The fishing boat behind the Lydia Ann is, I think, the Tulip, which belonged to the McGraths. Roddy Shipsey later bought it and it became the Girl Ita, named after his wife.

"Thank you to David Carroll for the photo and the information."

Photo 71 - Major Lloyd and His Wife Linda

"This photo shows Major Wilfred Lloyd and his wife, Linda, photographed on the quay outside the Harbour Master’s house. 

Major Lloyd was the Harbour Master in Dunmore before Capt. Carroll. The date of the photo is unknown, but if I were to guess, I would say it was taken in the late 1930s or early 1940s. 

On his retirement in 1947, the Munster Express looked back on his career. The following was published on Friday, 22 August 1947."

RETIREMENT OF MAJOR LLOYD

Interesting Career of Dunmore East Harbour Master

After twenty-seven years of conscientious and efficient service, Major Wilfred Lloyd has retired from the position of Harbour Master at Dunmore East. His impending departure from amongst them is keenly regretted by the residents of this quiet and picturesque Co. Waterford seaside resort, for while he lived and attended to his manifold duties there, Major Lloyd gained the esteem and admiration of the people of Dunmore to a degree rarely equalled by any man in a similar official position. He will leave Dunmore for County Wexford in the near future.

Prior to his appointment as Harbour Master at Dunmore East, Major Lloyd had an interesting and by no means unadventurous career. He went to America in 1905 and remained there for close on ten years, after which he joined the British forces almost immediately after the outbreak of the 1914–18 war and was attached to the Royal Naval Air Service, during which he saw active service. Prior to that, he served in the South African War with the Royal Irish Regiment and won distinction as a capable officer and gallant fighting man. He was demobilised in 1919, sometime after the termination of the First World War, with the substantive rank of Major, and it was subsequent to the severance of his connection with the forces that he was appointed to the responsible post of Harbour Master at Dunmore East.

From that time onwards, the Major took an especial interest in the affairs of Dunmore, which he endeavoured to advance and foster by every means in his power. As he often expressed it, he took an especial delight in tidying up the old harbour and keeping it in taut and trim condition. His hobby was aquatics and aquatic sport in general, and he built many fine racing punts in his spare time. These were entered with much subsequent success in the competitive events at the local regatta, year after year. He was an expert yachtsman and won many sailing races in his well-known Water Wag. He was also a fluent French speaker and sometimes acted as an interpreter for French fishermen in court when they were charged with illegal fishing. He was also known to do a little lobster fishing himself.

The people of the little town, who appreciated his many sterling qualities at their true worth, are unanimous in wishing him every happiness in his retirement.

Major Lloyd’s son, Lieut.-Commander Lloyd, R.N., was decorated with the D.S.C. for conspicuous gallantry during the last war.

We understand that Major Lloyd’s successor as Harbour Master at Dunmore will be Capt. Desmond Carroll, Dublin, who served with the Irish Mine-Laying Service during the military emergency in this country and who, in his official capacity, was often seen with his little ship, The Shark, at Passage East during that period.

"Thank you to David Carroll for sending me this photo, he acquired it from John Butler."

When Major Wilfred Lloyd came to Dunmore East in 1920 to take up the post of Harbour Master, his son Hardress Llewellyn Lloyd was only three years old. He had been born on 10 October 1917. That means Dunmore was not just somewhere he happened to live for a while, but the place that would have shaped his earliest memories. He would have grown up with the harbour before his eyes, with the tide forever coming and going, and with the business of the sea treated not as anything remarkable, but simply as part of the day’s work. The photo below was taken in 1927, when he was ten.

A child reared in that sort of setting would have had plenty to watch. There were boats arriving and departing, ropes and gear were everywhere, weather being discussed as seriously as politics, and men whose whole lives depended on judgement, timing, and nerve. His father’s position would have placed him close to it all. He was not looking at the harbour from a distance like a visitor eating an ice cream on a Sunday. He was growing up in the middle of a working maritime world, where everything had a purpose and the sea was respected because it had to be.

So when Hardress entered Dartmouth in 1931, it must have seemed a very fitting step. For a boy who had spent his childhood in Dunmore East under the shadow of the harbour office, the Royal Navy was hardly an outlandish direction to take. It feels more like the natural carrying on of something already begun. He went from Dartmouth to the training cruiser HMS Frobisher in 1935, then served on the cruiser HMS Delhi as a midshipman before Mediterranean service. By the outbreak of the Second World War, he had already reached the rank of Lieutenant.

The war found him in the dangerous service of Motor Torpedo Boats, small, fast vessels that left very little room for hesitation or error. He commanded MTB 6 in 1939, and later MTB 34 from 1940 to 1942. It was bold and exacting work, carried out in hostile waters and under constant risk. In 1942 he was Mentioned in Despatches, and later that year he received the Distinguished Service Cross for bravery in action off the Belgian coast. There is no great surprise in that, really. A man who had spent his earliest years in a place like Dunmore East may well have learned, before he knew it, that the sea favours calm heads.

His career continued to prosper after the war. He became Lieutenant-Commander in 1947, Commander in 1951, and Captain in 1956. He retired from the Royal Navy in 1966, and in the New Year Honours of 1967 he was appointed C.B.E. It was the conclusion of a long and distinguished naval life, and a very fine one too. Not bad for a small boy who had started out on the quay in Dunmore.

He was apparently known as “Harpy” Lloyd, and he died in 2001 at the age of 83. The official records give the dates and promotions, and they do that well enough, but the part that catches the imagination is the beginning. One can picture the child in Dunmore East, seeing the boats, hearing the talk, and absorbing without effort the habits of seafaring men. Villages like Dunmore have a way of sending people out into the world without ever making a fuss about it. They just rear them, and off they go, prepared for greatness.

"Thank you to David Carroll for providing this photo."

This colourised photo probably dates from the 1950s and likely taken in the summer time, as tents can be seen in the field under the woods, which probably meant the scouts were in the village. I wasn’t sure about the function of the two buildings in the foreground of the photo, so I asked David Carroll for information about them, he kindly got back to me with the following facts:

The building you are looking at in the photo was, in my childhood, known as the Shamrock Factory. The long shed to the right of it with the black curved roof was part of the “factory”. It was next to our back garden, and my father had a garage at the end of the laneway between the two buildings.

It was originally a kipper house. There were four of these as you came down from the Convent. That one was the largest and quite attractive, built with red bricks. There were two kipper houses on both sides of the road. To the best of my knowledge, these thrived around 1927, when there was great herring fishing. My guess is that they were not used after that for kippering, but were just left there and used for nets, gear, etc. They were all well-built, so they did not fall into dereliction.

The smaller house, nearer the Convent, had Martin Glanville, the lighthouse keeper, as caretaker. A basic fire brigade was stored in there — a cart with a few buckets, a ladder and hose pipes. I thankfully don’t remember it ever having to swing into action. I think Neddy Farrell might have had something to do with it.

McGraths owned one of the kipper houses on far side, under Shanoon. They revived kippering on a small scale in the 1950s, when the herrings returned. Coo Power seemed to own the other one.

Around 1952, a man came from Dublin called W. H. “Bill” Walsh, and he got the Shamrock Factory up and running in what had been the idle kipper house. It was a great boom to the village, and Bill Walsh became very popular, thanks to all the part-time jobs he offered for a few months each year. He was called “Shamrock Bill.”

Later, he set up the Kilkenny Design Centre, and the Ballintines took over the “factory”. They later built a new building at the back of the woods, near Cuckaloo. The old building was knocked during the harbour development, as were the other three kipper houses on the Dock. There was a fifth one near where Willie Rutter had the barber’s, on the edge of the cliff.

The building that Bill Walsh bought may have been owned by the OPW at the time. I think it might have been run by English or Scottish owners in its heyday. I reckon it was state of the art when it operated. However, I only ever knew it as the Shamrock Factory. You could enter the upstairs by an outside wooden stairs. I had a swing hanging out of it, made from an old rope and a bit of a fish box to sit on.

“Thanks to David Carroll for taking the time to compose the above piece."

This photo features members of the Dunmore East lifeboat RNLB St. Patrick crew, along with the crew of the trawler Wheal Geavor, which sank 19 miles south-east of the Hook Lighthouse. In the photo are: Patrick J. Glody; Sean Kearns, mechanic; Neil Whittle; Tom Power of the Wheal Geavor; Francis Aherne and John Murphy of the Wheal Geavor; and John Walsh, second coxswain.

The photo is taken from 'Lifeboats Ireland 1983', and was sent on to me by David Carroll. The piece below is based on the accompanying article.

On Monday, 12 October 1981, Dunmore East lifeboat was called to one of those services that reminds us just how quickly a working day at sea can turn into a fight for survival.

At 10.35 that morning, Dunmore East Pilot Station informed the deputy launching authority that the trawler Wheal Geavor, with a crew of three aboard, was disabled and making water. She was reported to be 19 miles south-east of Hook Head and in urgent need of assistance. Maroons were fired, and before boarding, the lifeboat crew collected a portable salvage pump from the harbour. At 10.50, the 44ft Waveney lifeboat St Patrick slipped her moorings and set out under the command of the Coxswain.

The weather was fair enough by lifeboat standards, but by no means calm. A fresh force 5 breeze was blowing from the north-west, with a moderate sea running. Once clear of the harbour, the Coxswain headed towards the casualty at full speed, and with following seas the lifeboat made good progress.

By 11.20, the Irish naval patrol boat LE Aisling reported that she had put a boarding party aboard the trawler with a salvage pump and was passing a tow. The position of the casualty was then given as 21 miles off Hook Head. The St Patrick arrived on scene at 12.30, along with the small coastal tanker MV Banwell. The lifeboat was asked to stand by while Banwell placed a salvage pipe aboard the Wheal Geavor, while LE Aisling continued to tow the stricken vessel towards Waterford at about three knots.

At first, there must have been some hope that the trawler could be saved. At 12.40, Banwell came alongside the trawler’s port side and passed a suction hose aboard. But the attempts to pump her out were unsuccessful. By 1.05, the lifeboat crew could see that the vessel had settled noticeably in the water. St Patrick moved in close and the order was given to abandon ship.

Within minutes the situation became critical. By 1.12 it was clear that the Wheal Geavor was sinking and listing heavily to starboard. Six men managed to jump to safety aboard Banwell, but Cadet Foskin remained aboard the trawler to let go the tow. As the list increased rapidly, the Coxswain made the decision to go in and rescue him without delay.

It was a dangerous manoeuvre. With the trawler’s mast and gallows leaning over and creating a serious hazard, the lifeboat crew stood ready on the foredeck. The Coxswain brought St Patrick alongside the trawler’s starboard side and held her bow hard against the casualty. In that brief and perilous moment, Assistant Mechanic Sean Kearns and Crew Member Patrick Glody snatched the cadet from the well-deck and pulled him safely aboard.

The Coxswain then drove the lifeboat full ahead, clearing the trawler just before she sank. At 1.15, St Patrick went alongside Banwell and took off the three fishermen. LE Aisling later sent a launch to collect her boarding party.

The St Patrick returned to Dunmore East at 3.10 that afternoon, landing the three survivors safely. By 4 o’clock she had been refuelled, remoored and was ready again for service — a small line in the official account, but one that says a great deal about the discipline and readiness of the lifeboat crew.

For their actions that day, framed letters of thanks signed by the Duke of Atholl, chairman of the Institution, were presented to the Coxswain, Assistant Mechanic Sean Kearns and Crew Member Patrick Glody.

It was a fine example of courage, judgement and seamanship. The Wheal Geavor was lost, but thanks to the efforts of the Dunmore East lifeboat crew, her men were not.

“Thanks to David Carroll for forwarding the photo and article.”

John “Bulligan” Power was one of those men who seemed to know everything that had ever happened in Dunmore East, long before anyone thought of writing it down. If there was a dispute about some old happening, a boat, a family connection, or who lived where in years gone by, Bulligan was the man to ask. He had a memory like a living data centre, only handier and probably quicker to access. Long before people went rooting around on computers for answers, they simply asked Bulligan and got the facts there and then.

Here we see him taking a walk on the pier, with his hands in his pockets and his mind, no doubt, travelling in several directions at once. I’d say he wasn’t just looking at the harbour as it was on the day the photo was taken, but also seeing the older harbour laid over it in his head, with different boats, different faces, and different times. Men like him never really looked at a place in the same way as the rest of us. They could stand in the one spot and see fifty years at a glance.

I’d guess this photo dates from the late 1970s or early 1980s. It appears in the book, Dauntless Courage, by David Carroll and is credited there to Rita and Sharon Murnaghan. Thanks to David Carroll for sending it on to me. It is a good image of Bulligan as many would have remembered him: deep in thought, taking the measure of the pier, and carrying more of Dunmore’s history in his head than any library shelf could comfortably hold.

This photograph shows the old harbour in Dunmore East on what looks like a fine summer morning around 1960, before the great changes and modernisation of the decade altered the place forever. The scene looks very still: the water is calm, the boats sit quietly at their moorings, and the pier itself appears almost deserted, with only the odd figure or two to be seen. It is Dunmore before the noise, the blasting, the new harbour works, and the busier fishing years that would follow.

The ever-present lighthouse stands watch over the harbour, just as it had done for generations, while small boats and working craft are scattered across the water below. There is no sense of hurry here in the morning light, with the Wexford coastline faintly visible in the distance. It is a working harbour, of course, but not yet the crowded and heavily developed port that many remember from the later 1960s. This was a summer morning that could pass with barely a soul disturbing the peace, apart from the kittiwakes.

"This photo is another one sent to me by David Carroll, and the original is credited to Paul O’Farrell.

This photo comes from the Alleyn Harris slide collection. I’d say it dates from around 1960 and shows the harbour in Dunmore East from the lighthouse end. Judging by the photograph, it is hard to see why such drastic improvements were needed. But I suppose I am only looking at a single image, and the reality of a working harbour in the middle of the herring season would have been very different from this quiet view on a summer’s day.

"Thanks to Geoff Harris for providing this photo."

This photo shows the harbour in Dunmore East when it was the premier fishing port in Ireland. It dates from July 1967, when a fleet of Dutch trawlers had the port clogged up. The harbour development was well under way at the time and things were starting to take shape. The photo was scanned from the Alleyn Harris slide collection. Thanks to Geoff Harris for sharing it.

This is a photo originally uploaded some years ago by Theo Harris to www.dunmore-east.net. It shows Stephen Harris doing his impersonation of the “Boy on the Wall”, a pose made famous by Dave Harris some years earlier for a postcard. A fleet of Dutch trawlers can also be seen, causing havoc in the harbour at Dunmore East at the height of the summer season in July 1967. It was bad enough that they were coming over and taking Dunmore fish, but they also kept people awake at night with the sound of their clogs as they staggered back to the boats from the pubs late at night.

It took the Mayor of Waterford to make a complaint about their presence after he discovered that their dumping of oil at sea threatened the summer season in Tramore. The following report appeared in the Waterford News and Star on July 28th, 1967:

DUTCH TRAWLERS BLOCKING DUNMORE EAST

A strong protest has been sent to the Government by the members of the Corporation about the blocking of Dunmore East port by a fleet of Dutch fishing trawlers.

The Mayor (Collr. Thomas Cullen) said the Dutch trawlers were causing a considerable amount of damage in the port. They were fishing about twenty miles off the coast but at the week-ends they moved into Dunmore and blocked off the entire port.

“Already,” he said, “they have damaged an Irish fishing boat and an Irish yacht and also the local pilot punt. The Dutch trawlers are nine abreast and are blocking the entrance to the pier. The trawler crews are pumping out oil into the sea which will ruin our beaches.

“As members of the Corporation,” he said, “we should object to these Dutch fishing boats blocking the harbour; damaging Irish boats and pumping waste oil into the sea. I think this is very unfair to the tourist industry and they should not be allowed to get away with it.”

Ald. T. Brennan said the responsible authority should view the action of the Dutch trawlers with alarm. The position at Dunmore East had become intolerable. The waste oil being pumped into the sea at Dunmore could spread to Tramore beach and other strands along the coast. The Dutch trawlers were also breaking up the timber wharf at Waterford when they docked there.

“These Dutch fishermen,” he said, “are not contributing to the Irish economy and I think we should make strong representations to the Department of Fisheries to prevent this happening in the future.”

It was decided to write to the Department protesting about the action of the Dutch trawlers.

In this photo, Thomas McGrath and Joefy Murphy can be seen giving a demonstration on how to use the latest fishing poles of the time, which were on sale in Kitty Burke’s shop.

These poles could also be used as sweeping-brush handles when they weren’t required for fishing purposes. The boys caught many eels with this equipment over the years and always swept up around where they had been fishing afterwards.

The boy on the right of the photo has envy in his eyes at the sight of their experimental gear.

After many hours of dangling their lines, Thomas and Joefy land the catch of the day, thus enhancing their fishermen credentials, as well as proving the efficiency of their fishing gear. 

A photo of an unusual looking fish, with Paddy Power, two George Roche’s and a chap from town who used to work with them in the shed. 

This photograph,taken by David Murphy, captures four legendary Dunmore fishermen during their time fishing out of Howth: Peter Nolan R.I.P., John O’Donnell, John ‘Busty’ Griffin R.I.P., and Stephen ‘Mull’ Mullally.

The only person positively identified in this photograph is Tommy McGrath senior, center in the picture, who appears to be about 40 years old here, placing the photograph around 1940. When I asked David Carroll, who lived on the quay during the 1950's and 60's, if he recognised any of the others, his view was that they were most likely “visitors” rather than locals—possibly workers from Donegal, the Isle of Man, or even Scotland. At the time, there was a strong tradition of travelling crews who followed the herring shoals from port to port.

I noticed that the original image bore the words Dunmore East along the bottom edge, with some additional lettering to the left. This suggests the photo may originally have been produced as a postcard, promoting the village during that era. But of course I could be wrong.

This photo shows Joan Power, wife of Ned Power, enjoying a quiet moment of playtime with her son Mark on the Dock Strand during the 1950s. This little stretch of sand, down by the Lifeboat House, was once a familiar bathing spot for local families, up until the harbour development changed the shape and use of the area. In those days, the quay was not just a place of boats, fishing and work, but also part of everyday family life, where children played on the sand and stones, mothers kept watch, and summer days were spent close to the sea.

There are some names in a fishing village that seem to belong not only to one family, but to the whole place. Paddy “Billy” Power is one of those names. He is remembered as a lifeboat man, a decorated coxswain, a quiet hero, and one of that generation whose courage was rarely spoken of by themselves, but never forgotten by others.

Dunmore East has always had a deep connection with the lifeboat service. In earlier times, when weather forecasts were not what they are now and communication was limited, the courage of the crew was often the last hope for men in trouble offshore. Launching the lifeboat meant leaving the safety of the harbour and heading into conditions that most people were trying to escape from. It meant trust — in the boat, in the crew, in the coxswain, and in the old instinct of men who knew the sea.

Paddy Billy Power belonged to that tradition. As coxswain, he carried a responsibility that went far beyond bravery. He had to judge the sea, read the weather, command the crew, and make decisions where hesitation could cost lives.

The word “hero” can sometimes sit strangely on men like Paddy Billy. The old lifeboat men did not often use grand language about themselves. They were more likely to say they were only doing what had to be done. Their courage was practical. It was in the launching of the boat, the grip on the rope, the shout over the wind, the judgement made in darkness, and the long pull back towards safety.

There is also a family warmth around Paddy Billy’s memory. He wasn’t just a name in a lifeboat record or a figure in an old photograph. He was an uncle, a neighbour, a familiar harbour face, and part of a community where everyone knew the sea could give and take in equal measure.

That is often how memory survives in a place like Dunmore. Not only in medals, certificates, or formal ceremonies, but in small family recollections, old photographs, and stories told over and over because they still matter.

This photograph most likely dates from the late 1870s, and it captures Dunmore East at a very particular moment in its story. The lifeboat house had not yet been built on the quay, so the harbour scene is missing one of the landmarks that later generations would come to know so well. What can be seen, however, is the Coastguard Station, standing watch on a harbour that was still developing its own identity.

The large white building overlooking the harbour has a history of its own. Long before it became known to generations of Dunmore people as the Convent, it began life in a rather different world. Built in the early 1800s as a summer residence for the Marquis of Waterford, it belonged to the period when Dunmore East was being shaped as a fashionable seaside resort, with ambitions beyond fishing boats and village life.

In time, the building became the Bay Hotel, serving the visitors who arrived with the packet steamers and the holidaymakers who came during the busy summer seasons. It must have seen its share of trunks, parasols, fine dinners, and perhaps the odd complaint about the weather, which even the Marquis of Waterford could do little about.

By the early 1880s, its days as a hotel were drawing to a close. The building was purchased for the Sisters of Mercy, who came to Dunmore East in 1883. A place once associated with summer visitors and seaside society was turned towards the daily needs of the village itself.

From then on, it became a convent, a school, and a place of service. For generations afterwards, the old hotel above the harbour was woven into the lives of Dunmore families through the education of their daughters, and of their brilliant sons too, at least up to the completion of second class.

So, in this one photograph, we are looking at Dunmore on the cusp of change, just before another chapter began — before the lifeboat house appeared on the quay, and before the Bay Hotel became simply, and fondly, the Convent.

Photo 88 - The S.S. Soussien 

This vessel seems quite large for Dunmore. The harbour must have undergone dredging to accommodate it. 

According to William Power, it’s the S.S. Soussien. It took away the scrap metal from the Lincolnshire and Anthony salvaged by the L'Artiglio during the 1930’s.

The following information is compiled from two reports from the Munster Express of June 19th, 1936 and October 30th, 1936. 

French Steamer at Dunmore East: 

On Saturday, June 13th, 1936, the French steamer SS Soussion arrived at Dunmore East. This vessel, weighing 849 tons net and 1,530 gross, is owned by the Comptoirs Francais des Transports, headquartered at 3 Rue Laffitte, Paris, and registered in Marseilles. The purpose of her visit was to load copper salvaged from the sunken steamer Lincolnshire.

The Lincolnshire, a casualty of the Great War, lies some miles off the Hook. The salvaged copper was destined for an English port, marking an important salvage operation of the era.

The SS Soussion made a significant return to Dunmore East at the end of October, 1936, this time to load approximately 1,300 tons of iron and copper. These materials were recovered by the Italian ship Artiglio from the same wreck, the SS. Lincolnshire. This visit marked the second cargo load by the Soussion, following her initial trip in June, where she had also transported a substantial consignment of salvaged materials.

The photo was probably taken during the June visit in 1936.

This photograph dates from the 1870s and shows Dunmore East in the days when sail still ruled the harbour. The boat in the foreground appears to be a "Gaff Cutter", a type of working craft that would once have been a common sight around Dunmore during the 19th century. These were the days before engines altered the sound, pace, and shape of fishing life, when canvas, tides, and a fair wind still decided much of the day’s work.

There is interest on the land in this picture as well as on the water. On the left-hand side of the road, just beyond the entrance to Councillor’s, a house can be seen, with what appear to be other houses behind it. I can just about remember a derelict site there in the 1960s, full of briars and wild growth, and it may well have been the remains of that cluster of houses.

Whoever lived there had a view that money could never improve upon — down over the harbour, across the bay, and out towards the open water. They would also have had no shortage of fresh air. On a warm summer’s day, — or what we might now call a heat-dome event, caused no doubt by generations recklessly lighting fires with coal and sticks, — there was probably a grand breeze coming in off the sea to keep the place cool and blow the chimney smoke away.

Here we see Davy “Muck” Murphy, on the left, lowering four barrels of herring into the hold of a barrel boat. I don’t know who the other man is. The photograph is a still from a video taken in 1971. 

Photo 91 - The Brave Michael Orpen

This is Mick Orpen from Castletownbere, a frequent visitor to Dunmore during the 1960s, 1970s and 1980s. The photograph is also a still from a video dating from 1971.

In the first week of January 1966, the Beatles were number one in the pop charts with their song “We Can Work It Out.” During that same week in Dunmore East, there were a lot of problems that had to be worked out. The Battle of Baginbun had been fought, which saw the Irish naval vessel, L.E. Macha, firing warning shots at the local fleet to restore order at sea. Michael Orpen from Bere Island, the skipper of the Ardent, had been accused of ramming a Northern boat, Victory, and was arrested when he came ashore, needless to say there was consternation in the village. Anyone visiting the village pubs at that time would not have heard “We Can Work It Out”; instead, the number one song being sung in Dunmore was “The Battle of Baginbun.”

I recently came across a handwritten version of the lyrics of that song, which I have transcribed. They were originally uploaded by Thomas McGrath, who had found them among his mother’s belongings. To my reading, the song could be sung to the air of “The Boys of Kilmichael.”

The photo above shows Michael Orpen and some of his crew after coming ashore in Dunmore on the day of the skirmish.

The Battle of Baginbun

Can be sung to the air of “The Boys of Kilmicheal”.

I

It was in the month of December

And the year was Nineteen Sixty Five,

When down off the South coast of Wexford

The trawlers began to arrive.

They came from the East and the West boys

As often before they had done,

To gather the big shoals of herring

In the Bay that is called Baginbun.

(Chorus)

Then here’s to our gallant young fishermen

Those brave boys so staunch and so true

They’ll raise up the cry “no surrender”

And conquer the Orange and Blue.

II

The New Year had only just started

When the Northmen appeared on the scene,

They intended to fish in our waters

Still flying the flag of the Queen.

You’ve heard of our struggle for freedom

To break from Britannia’s sway,

Well Haughey has now gone to join her

So he sent the Corvette to the fray.

Chorus

Then here’s to our gallant young fishermen

etc. etc.

III

Our men were not easily daunted

There was too much at stake to give in,

They still have an old score to settle

With Fish Buyer Johnnie Baldwin.

The trawlers were all in position

While shooting their nets in the Bay,

When the Ardent was rammed by the Victory

But the Victory had to give way.

Chorus

Then here’s to our gallant young fishermen

etc. etc.

IV

The Boys from the South gathered round them

When up came the Irish Navy,

The Corvette moved in with guns blazing

’Twas their first and last battle at sea.

No more will they sing God Save Ireland

No more will they fight for the Green,

For off Wexford they fought for the British

And now they’ll sing God Save the Queen.

(Chorus)

Then here’s to our gallant young fishermen

etc. etc.

V

Well brave Michael Orpen from Beara

Who skippered the trawler Ardent,

Was arrested in Dunmore on landing

And to Waterford City was sent.

He was charged and returned for trial

To him they refused to give bail,

So in case that the place could not hold him

They locked him in Limerick gaol.

(Chorus)

Then here’s to our gallant young fishermen

etc. etc.

VI

Raise a toast to those brave men off Wexford

Who’ve been charged with all kinds of mis-deeds,

They’ll fearlessly answer the charges

Let right vanquish might is their creed.

If the North wants to fish in our waters

There’s a way it can easily be done,

Tell the British abolish the Border

Then the North and the South can be one.

Chorus

Then here’s to our gallant young fishermen

And Orpen so gallant and true,

They raised up the cry “no surrender”

And scuttled the Orange and Blue.

The full story of the Battle of Baginbun can be read here: The Herring Boom of the 50's & 60's 

Brian Crummey was a name known far beyond Dunmore East. In fishing circles, all around the Irish coast, he was recognised as a man of the sea in the fullest sense — fisherman, skipper, boat owner, organiser, and, when the need arose, a strong voice for those who’s living depended on the boats.

Originally from Dún Laoghaire, Brian became part of the Dunmore East story too, continuing that long connection between the Dublin fishing boats and the harbour here. In the old herring seasons, when boats from many ports came to Dunmore, men like Brian were familiar figures along the quay. They brought with them not only boats and crews, but experience, ambition and a wider knowledge of the fishing world.

Those who worked with him remembered a man who knew his business. He was particular about boats, gear and standards, and he had the mind of a skipper who was always looking ahead. Fishing was changing quickly in those years, with bigger boats, new methods, new regulations and increasing pressure from outside forces. Brian understood that the fisherman’s battle was not always fought at sea. Sometimes it had to be fought in meeting rooms, in committees, and in arguments with people who had little real understanding of what life afloat involved.

He was widely respected because he never hesitated to stand up for the rights of fishermen. Whether everyone agreed with him or not was another matter, but nobody could say he was afraid to make his views heard. He had strong opinions and he was well able to defend them. There was no soft-pedalling with Brian Crummey when he felt that fishermen were being treated unfairly, or when decisions were being made that affected boats, crews and families around the coast.

That kind of voice mattered. Fishing communities have always produced men of skill and courage, but they also needed men who could speak up when the industry was under pressure. Brian was one of those. He knew the sea, he knew boats, and he knew the anxieties that lay behind every landing — the price of fish, the cost of keeping a vessel going, the danger of the work, and the uncertainty that came with every change in policy.

For many in Dunmore East and beyond, Brian Crummey will be remembered as a capable skipper and a determined advocate for fishermen. He belonged to a generation that saw great change in the Irish fishing industry, and he met that change in his own direct way: with knowledge, conviction and a willingness to speak his mind.

Frank Scallan of Kilmore Quay was another of those strong fishing voices of the early 1970s. In an RTÉ report from 1971, as Irish fishermen worried about the terms being offered before entry into the Common Market, Frank spoke out forcefully against the proposed six-mile fishing limit, calling it a complete sell-out. Like many skippers of his generation, he understood that the future of fishing was being shaped not only at sea, but also in political decisions made far from the quayside.

Along with the men who defended the rights of fishermen to make a living, there were the ordinary men — nothing special, nothing grand — just men who got on with the job, no matter what. Paddy Condon from Passage East was one such man. Photographed on the quay in Dunmore in 1971, he is doing the kind of work that most men would run away from. 

During the summer months of the 1940s and 1950s, Dunmore East’s Harbour took on a character quite different from the working port seen during the busier fishing seasons. On a calm morning, its sheltered waters might be dotted with sailing dinghies, rowing boats, small cabin cruisers and the occasional handsome motor yacht visiting from farther along the coast.

Waterford Harbour Sailing Club had been established in Dunmore East in 1934, and by the post-war years sailing had become an important part of summer life in the village. The boats were generally modest by modern standards. Many were timber-built and required a good deal of scraping, painting and varnishing before they were ready for another season. A boat might spend the winter drawn up ashore under a cover and emerge in spring looking rather doubtful, only to be transformed after several weeks of work into something fit to be admired from the pier. 

Small sailing dinghies moved easily around the harbour, sometimes carrying experienced sailors and sometimes carrying young crews learning by trial, error and the occasional shouted instruction from the shore. The light craft depended entirely on the wind, and there was no disguising the abilities of the person at the helm. On a good day they slipped neatly across the water; on a bad one they seemed to spend more time pointing in the wrong direction.

The larger pleasure boats were a different sight altogether. Motor yachts and cabin cruisers arrived from Waterford, Dun Laoghaire and ports across the Irish Sea, their polished timber, brass fittings and neatly painted hulls attracting plenty of attention. Boats of this kind brought a touch of glamour to the harbour and were examined closely from the pier by anyone with the time and inclination—which, during the summer holidays, included nearly every child in Dunmore. 

There were no modern marina berths waiting for visiting yachts. Boats generally lay at moorings or anchored within the harbour, and reaching the shore often involved a small tender or rowing boat. Owners came and went carrying supplies, ropes, fuel cans and all the mysterious equipment that appeared necessary for a few peaceful days afloat. The harbour might look relaxed from a distance, but there was always somebody rowing out, hauling on a rope or trying to persuade an engine to start.

The Dunmore East Regatta day was the great celebration of the summer. It had a long history, and by the late 1940s it was already one of the village’s best-attended occasions. Sailing and rowing races filled the harbour, while swimming competitions were held from boats anchored along the pier. 

Not every boat was entered in a race, of course. Much of the summer's pleasure came simply from being on the water. Families rowed around the harbour, young people learned to sail and visitors took short trips along the coast when the weather permitted. Some boats were beautifully maintained; others survived through paint, optimism and the firm belief that a small leak was nothing to worry about.

Summer evenings brought a quieter scene. As the wind eased, sails were lowered and boats returned to their moorings. The sound of oars carried clearly across the water, mingling with voices from the pier and the occasional throb of a motor launch. Above the harbour, the houses caught the last of the light while the masts below stood in dark lines against the evening sky.

The harbour of the 1940s and 1950s belonged both to those who made their living from the sea and to those who went afloat simply for the enjoyment of it. Their presence gave Dunmore East a lively summer atmosphere—less crowded and less organised than today perhaps, but full of movement, colour and the particular excitement that always accompanied the appearance of a strange sail beyond the pier. 

This photograph is taken from a postcard which likely dates from the closing years of the nineteenth century. Everything in the scene appears calm, peaceful and civilised. However, if the antics described in the following piece—based on an 1896 report in the Munster Express—were commonplace, people may have needed to be ready to avert their eyes at a moment’s notice, for fear of seeing something that no needs to see.

SEA BATHING AT DUNMORE EAST, 1896

An unusual matter came before the magistrates at the monthly Petty Sessions held at Callaghane Courthouse on the 4th of August 1896. The presiding justices were Sir Robert J. Paul, C. P. Bolton and J. Bourke, Resident Magistrate.

When the ordinary business of the court had concluded, Sergeant Ryan of Dunmore East addressed the bench regarding a group of visitors who had been bathing at Councillors’ Walk on 28 June. He explained that he had received instructions to serve summonses on the bathers for indecent exposure.

According to the sergeant, the visitors had removed their clothes on the rocks while the tide was very low. They then had to run approximately forty yards across the exposed strand before reaching the water. On their way to and from the sea, they were said to have been clearly visible from nearby houses.

The authorities hoped that court action would encourage bathers at Dunmore East to wear proper bathing costumes in future.

Sir Robert Paul, however, had already refused to sign the summonses. He considered the language used in them unnecessarily severe and did not believe it would be fair to punish people for bathing at a place that had been used for that purpose since his own childhood. Until then, no attempt had been made to insist that bathers there wear bathing clothes.

He also questioned just how visible the bathers could have been from the nearby houses, suggesting that the occupants would need telescopes to see them properly.

Sergeant Ryan disagreed. He told the court that he had stood at Galgey’s Corner and could see the bathers distinctly with the naked eye.

Sir Robert then asked whether the gentlemen who regularly bathed at Kelly’s Rock, below the People’s Park, wore bathing costumes. Sergeant Ryan admitted that they did not.

This prompted Sir Robert to ask whether Kelly’s Rock was not an even more exposed bathing place than Councillors’ Walk. Sergeant Ryan agreed that it was at least as exposed, while Mr Bolton declared that it was considerably more so.

Sir Robert concluded that it would be decidedly unfair to summon and punish a group of excursionists for bathing without clothes when the local gentry and residents were known to do exactly the same thing at Kelly’s Rock.

The bench therefore refused to take any action on the complaint.

The case offers an amusing glimpse of summer life in Dunmore East at the end of the nineteenth century. It also shows that disputes over bathing habits, public decency and different rules for locals and cheeky visitors applied even then.