The Bulligan Powers

This article comes from a newspaper report written in the 1980s 

by Kathleen O’Connor.

The heroism of our lifeboat men is too often taken for granted. When five generations of the same family get involved in the same profession, there’s just one word for it — “tradition”. In Dunmore East, Co Waterford, the Power family, known locally as the Bulligan Powers, have given lifeboat service for that length of time.

Look for someone named Power in Dunmore East and you’re in trouble. The name is as common as stars. To differentiate, every Power gets a handy tag. You have the Butcher Power, Cu Power, Bush Power, Jack Oil Power, Fancy, Duck and Rocky. The Bulligan nickname came about in a “strange fashion.” John Power, a spritely 79 with a head of hair many a young man would envy, remembers robbing an orchard as a nipper. “My mother’s name was Houlihan and the owner of the orchard was a Scotswoman. She came running out yelling ‘I see you John Houlihan, I know who you are’. She pronounced it all wrong and the kids thought she said Bulligan and the name stuck.”

John Power dismisses with a shrug a lifetime of seafaring, memories of wars and revolutions, days and months and years of scouring the sea for fish, the long lonely nights when he served as a coast watch during the war. “Twas all work.”

But his pride in his family’s contribution to the lifeboat service shows. He remembers being a young fellow and hearing all the stories about his granduncle, who was the first of the line to give service to the RNLI. Looking back over the generations he recalled: “He’d be my granduncle on my mother’s side. Her family came over from Tenby in Wales and settled in these parts over 200 years ago.”

According to John, his relative Jack Dingley captured his own slice of local history when the Alfred D. Snow, a ship carrying grain from San Francisco to Liverpool, went down in the area with all hands lost. He certainly knows his dates: “It was the 4th of January, 1888, when she was sighted off Brownstown Head over near Tramore. She was making no headway, but as the winds reached gale force from the south and west, the captain decided to head for Waterford. He met a strong ebbtide that swept her on the rocks to disaster. When the distress signals went up, Jack Dingley presented himself at the lifeboat house.

“The lifeboat was a 14-man oared houseboat then. The story goes that the coxwain refused to give permission for the lifeboat to be launched. But Jack got an iron bar down in the dock and he forced the lock on the lifeboat house. He mustered a crew and they set sail in a gale force 12. But when they got to the stricken ship only the masts were above the water and 29 were lost with no survivors.”

They said Jack Dingley’s day came some months later when the Wexford schooner he fished went down with all hands lost in Baginbun Head. His body was found the next day and he was buried in Ferthard, Co Wexford. But the local people in Dunmore East held him in so much esteem than they had his remains brought back to be re-interred in the local graveyard in Killea.

John Power remembers that his own father, Big Ned, didn’t talk much about his lifeboat service. “He had one rule and one rule only. No matter how bad the weather is, you go when you get the call.” 

Big Ned’s seafaring days were numbered the day a ship entered Waterford harbour on the worst day imaginable. John says: “It was the 3rd of February, 1893. The weather was indescribable and everyone thought it would be another Alfred D. Snow. When the lifeboat went out, the seas were so bad the only way they could reach the stricken ship was to run broadside to the weather. She took a bad turn and capsized. One crew member, who was my father’s first cousin, was injured so badly with an oar in his side that he died a few days later. Big Ned was in the water for so long that the exposure gave him rheumatic fever and he was so crippled he never went to sea again. He died at 63. And he looked like an old man.”

John Power’s days of service have spanned so many years that time has dimmed the memory of many of them. But the very first occasion he crewed on the lifeboat he wasn’t a member at all.

“She was an engine-powered job then and when the maroons went up on a fierce day the crew wouldn’t go out ... they said their lives would be in danger because the boat had woodrot.

The second mechanic, Willie Bond, put his eye on me — I was young at the time. He gathered a crew and John Roche, Leo Galgey, Patsy Power and Fonsie and myself went out. I’ll always remember the cheers that went up from the crowd who had gathered. Fish buyers who saw us took bets that we wouldn’t clear the harbour because they said later we were only visible on the crests of the waves.” They never did find the ship in distress.

“We came across the S.S. Rockabill seven miles beyond the Hook. The captain told us it was his worst crossing in living memory. They had lost all the lifeboats and he was hove-to waiting for the gale to abate. When the boat returned to the lifeboat station, it was discovered that the Morse code had been translated incorrectly and that the ship in distress was off the English coast.”

John Power's sons, Jeff, Dick and the late John, all volunteered for lifeboat service. Jeff is 48 now and he smiles and says apologetically: "I haven't the memory of my father so I have no great stories." He served under coxwain Paddy Billy Power, "probably the best-remembered cox of all time. There are a legion of stories about the late Paddy Billy, but the one that stands out was the time he told the visiting American tourist, 'Ah, yes, mam. I've travelled all over the world and many other places too'."

Added Jeff: "He was an absolute character but some seaman. He sure had the salt in his blood and not an iota of fear."

During their years of service to the lifeboat, Jeff and Dick Power succeeded in changing an RNLI ruling of the time. Jeff recalls: "At that time, the lifeboat secretary was to always accompany the crew when the boat was called into service. But the secretary worked in Waterford and we thought it madness to hang around until he got here. We took a firm stand and the ruling was changed so maybe we achieved something."

He achieved something else when he was presented with a citation for bravery. He makes absolute light of it and says it was "a lot of hullaballoo about nothing". 

The occasion was back in the early Sixties when a retired sea captain was bringing two barges from Bristol to New Ross. Jeff recalls: "It was freshenin' for a gale and the captain was manning one and towing the other when he went up on the rocks. We had to go and see if we could get him off. The sea was running bad and he did the captain act and refused to get off his barge. The crew put their eye on me and as I was the youngest member, I was picked to try and clamber aboard the heaving barge and persuade him to get off."

"He was angry and furious but I persuaded and cajoled him and eventually we got him off and we managed to tow the barges ashore. I came home that day thinking you had to be a bit of a diplomat as well as a bit of a seaman to crew a lifeboat."

Dick Power’s son Richard, at 21, is one of the new breed of young fishermen. Older retired fishermen argue that the young fellows have it soft, with modern trawlers built like floating hotels with comfort, showers, television and videos. The young fellows argue that they haven’t, that the trawlers are away for weeks at a time and the social life is nil.

We had a quick chat with Richard before he went out fishing at 2 am. He has volunteered for lifeboat service and has been out four or five times. He quietly admits: "No heroic rescues, just a few tow jobs as yet."

 But his grandfather, John Bulligan Power, is proud of the lad: "I’m glad he’s carrying on a tradition that’s dear to me and dear to the men of my family that went before me. Yes I am, I’m very proud."