The Gillian Nicholson Collection

"The photographs below feature the “Butcher” Power family, who, through selling meat, groceries and beer, were always at the heart of life in the village. They also bring us back to the quay in Dunmore East — a place where something was always happening, even when it appeared that nothing much was going on at all. Boats rested against the wall between trips to sea, conversations stretched longer than intended, and children somehow managed to stay underfoot without ever being told to move too far away.

The quay was workplace, playground, meeting place and grandstand all in one, and these photographs preserve those everyday moments that rarely seemed important at the time, but mean much more now.

The images were kindly shared by Gillian Nicholson, daughter of Max and Helen “Power” Nicholson. My sincere thanks to Gillian for making these photographs available and allowing a few more stories from the quay to surface once again."

The two children in this photo are John Martin and Helen Power, and it was taken around 1945 or ’46. John was sporting a fabulous haircut at the time. Possibly he had been to my grandfather’s salon, as many children left there in a hurry with similar haircuts once he produced the clippers.

During the late 1970s, when punk rock was a popular music trend, many teenagers spent fortunes on haircuts like the one seen here. John was clearly ahead of his time, having perfected the look some thirty years earlier. He was a real trendsetter.

This photograph was taken in Falloon around 1968 and shows Helen Nicholson standing with her mother, Katie Power. It appears to be a fine summer’s day, though if you know Falloon at all, you’ll understand that a breeze would have been part of the arrangement. There’s hardly a day there when something isn’t flapping — be it washing on a line or a strand of hair refusing to behave.

I’d say Katie was overseeing proceedings, keeping a steady eye on whatever task was unfolding. Mothers of that generation had a way of supervising without seeming to do so — present, watchful, and quietly in charge.

Parked beside them is the unmistakable little Mini, the iconic car of the 1960s. First sold as the Austin Seven and the Morris Mini-Minor, it later became known simply as the Mini — and nowadays the “Classic Mini,” to separate it from its modern descendants. By today’s standards it was a small car, but back then it was capable of holding what felt like half the parish. I’ve often heard it said that eight could fit in comfortably. I suppose people were indeed smaller in those times, or perhaps just better at folding themselves into tight spaces.

Here we see Gerry O’Neill and Max Nicholson, suited and booted at the Waterford Rugby Football Club dinner dance in 1963. Tuxedos sharp, bow ties more or less straight, and glasses in hand, they appear to be enjoying a rather refined mix of Milk and Alcohol. Who would have thought a rugby celebration could look so civilised — at least it did for the photo session.

This photo of Heather O'Neill and Helen Nicholson, was also taken at the Waterford Rugby Football Club dinner dance in 1963. While the menfolk battled it out in a scrum at the bar, the ladies sat back and enjoyed a gin and tonic. No doubt they discussed the pressing issues of the day and the emerging fashions, all the while keeping an eye on the front row at the bar.

It was a time of great change in Ireland, and women were beginning to come to the fore. By 1982, women were playing international rugby themselves and had taken their rightful place at the bar counter, side by side with their more rugged male counterparts.

But in 1963, women were considered more genteel and ladylike, and were often happy to let the men handle the rough stuff.

Gerry and Max, Still Partying.

The night may have worn on, but the two boys didn't wear out.

In this colourised photograph, we see Katie Power returning from one of her daily cycles, a familiar and reassuring sight around the village of Dunmore East during her lifetime. Whether travelling uphill or downhill, it made little difference to Katie — she moved along at her own steady and dependable pace, never hurried and never delayed.

She may well have been returning from a trip to Falloon when this photograph was taken, as no hill in the parish was ever considered too steep for her bicycle. The gateway she is entering here led to the Power family home at the time, a place long associated with village life.

Today, the site is occupied by the Centra supermarket. One suspects that, had it existed in Katie’s day, she would have run the business with the same quiet efficiency and determination for which she was known.

This photo of the harbour in Dunmore East appears to date from the 1950s. It looks as though a few yachts must have crept in quietly while the real working boats were out beyond the Hook, hauling nets and earning their keep. The harbour, usually alive with the business of fishing, seems in this moment to have taken on a more leisurely air.

Still, no matter how many yachts lined the quays, the harbour’s true identity was never in doubt. It was built on fishing, shaped by it, and always waiting for the working boats to return and set things right again.

I’d say this photograph was taken around 1966 or perhaps 1967, and it captures a moment of great upheaval — one of the last remaining sections of the old harbour being removed as reconstruction gathered pace. Stone walls and grassy banks that had stood through generations were being lifted away, making room for progress. It must have felt like watching part of the village’s memory being dismantled stone by stone.

What makes it all the more remarkable is that this transformation was happening against the wider backdrop of what became known as the “Herring War”. While tensions played out at sea, closer to home the harbour itself was being drastically reshaped. Improvement was necessary, of course, but it came at a cost — and not just in stone and banks of clay.

One of the most visible casualties of the works was the annual Dunmore East Regatta. On Friday, 24th June 1966, the News and Star carried what must have felt like a body blow to many locals:

“The 100-year-old Dunmore East Regatta will not be held this year.”

The committee explained that their reluctant decision was influenced by the present state of the harbour and a feeling that local support was lacking. With reconstruction and enlargement works ongoing, it was simply impossible to stage a successful regatta. The quay, once alive with colour, bunting, and spectators leaning over the rails, was now a building site. Amenities were limited. Access was disrupted. The very space that had hosted over a century of celebration was, for the time being, unrecognisable.

The statement carried a tone of disappointment but also of hope. The committee expressed the wish that, once harbour works were completed and local enthusiasm revived, the “colourful local event” would return. In the meantime, six offshore sailing races would still be run by the Sailing Club, four of them for the News & Star Trophy — a reminder that while the regatta was diminished, it was not entirely extinguished. Many members of the Regatta Committee were also members of the Sailing Club, and vice versa, so the spirit of the event still flickered on the water, even if the quayside celebrations were absent.

And thankfully, Dunmore being Dunmore, the social side of things refused to be silenced altogether. The Regatta Dance went ahead in the Haven on 14th August 1966, with music by the Pathfinders. If the harbour could not host its usual spectacle of sails and summer crowds, the dance floor would have to suffice. One can imagine the relief of it — polished shoes instead of red dust and fish scales from the quayside, music instead of machinery, laughter rising where only weeks before there had been disappointment.

So while this image shows demolition and change, it also marks resilience. The old harbour was giving way to the new. The regatta paused, but it did not disappear. And even in a year when pathways around the quay were impassable, the Pathfinders ensured there was still a tune to follow and a reason to gather.

Progress may have interrupted tradition in 1966, but it never quite managed to silence it.

This is a photo taken from outside the church in Killea in the early 1970s, a time when life moved at a much slower pace than it does today. There weren’t too many houses on the Killea Road at that time, and you’d be more likely to be obstructed by a herd of cows than by a traffic jam. Speeding wasn’t an issue either, as most cars struggled their way up the hill in second gear, engines grumbling in protest. Coming back down, however, was another matter entirely — gravity had a way of reminding you who was really in charge.

When I look at this photo now, I don’t just see fields — I see my childhood territory. I remember galloping around those fields pretending to be a horse, utterly convinced of my own speed and grace. I must have been sixteen or seventeen during those energetic performances. When this photo was taken, I was probably about ten — and much more sensible.

The village was surrounded by woods in those days. For the children growing up in Killea, they were our wilderness and our playground during the summer months. We’d head into the deep undergrowth and make bows and arrows from whatever branches we could find and from twine, which we always carried in our pockets. We would then promptly turn them on one another in mock battle. The arrows were sharpened with our penknives, which every boy also had. By some miracle, no one ever lost an eye. It was a different kind of childhood from the one children lead today — unsupervised, inventive, slightly reckless, and entirely active.

Autumn brought its own rituals. Weeks would be spent roaming the fields collecting mushrooms that no one ever ate. Bag after bag of them were gathered with great seriousness and absolutely no purpose beyond the thrill of discovery. It seems pointless now, but at the time it felt important — like work that needed doing.

Killea today is a different place. There’s an abundance of houses now, neat and orderly where open pasture once stretched. It’s all much more civilised. Children growing up there today are spared the hardship of having to entertain themselves in the woods, chase imaginary adventures through open fields, or dodge cattle on their way home from school.

I must say that I have great memories of my years living there, and every time I pass the remaining green fields of Killea, I feel that familiar tug — the urge to get out of the car and go for a slow trot across my old pasture.

Some instincts, it seems, never really leave you.

In this photograph, Bill Power, the butcher, is pictured with his wife Catherine, daughter Helen and son Billy Jnr.. The photo was likely taken outside the Powers’ home, which was beside the butcher’s shop in Dunmore, probably at lunchtime, as Bill is still wearing his white work coat. I would estimate that it dates from the late 1940s or early 1950s.

After a long day cutting meat and entertaining customers in the butchers shop, Bill Power liked nothing better than going for a walk with his dog, Rags. They often wandered around the harbour, and sometimes through the park or down the Island Road. If the boats were in, Bill would sometimes take orders for supplies, which he would have ready early the next morning.

On evenings like the one we see here, the boats were out and the harbour was quiet — just Bill, Rags, and the photographer, who was possibly his wife, Catherine. They were free to savour the simple pleasures of 1950s village life, and thanks to this photograph, we can still enjoy that moment more than 70 years later.

Here we see Bill and Catherine Power enjoying a quiet moment in the garden. They were possibly discussing whether Billy or Peter was the better storyteller — a hard choice for them to make.

Here we see a number of boats tied up in the harbour in Dunmore East, probably during the 1950s, or certainly before harbour development work began in 1963. Fishing was good in the 1950s, and it was decided that a bigger, safer harbour was needed to accommodate the large number of boats fishing out of Dunmore at that time.

This is the Polarmay, a ship that visited Dunmore East in a hurry one Saturday night during the 1970s. A full account of this extraordinary visit can be read about after the next photo.

One Saturday night in the late 1970s, a strange thing happened in Dunmore East — not an unusual occurrence, you might think, but this was out of the ordinary even for Dunmore. A Swedish research vessel, which had been at sea for several weeks, spotted the lights of the village on their horizon. That day, the last of the vodka aboard had been drunk and the crew were starting to get uneasy. They had heard many stories about the legendary “Bill the Butcher’s” bar, and when they realised they were within three miles of it, the captain set a course for Dunmore.

By the time they reached the mouth of the harbour it was 11.20 p.m., just ten minutes to closing time. The captain decided not to bother berthing at the quayside and instead made straight for Stoney Cove, tying up at Goosey Rock. Within seconds the crew were ashore and making their way up the steps behind the Fisherman’s Hall. Out of breath, they ran towards the Butcher’s Bar and salvation. However, when they reached the front door, they could hear time being called inside. They could smell the drink and their tongues were hanging out.

Peter Power was on the door and apologised to them, explaining that no drink was ever sold after hours on his premises. A more forlorn bunch of Swedes he had never seen. Taking pity on them, he suggested they might try further down the road.

And so they made their way to the Ocean Hotel, not expecting much. To their surprise, Mr Gallagher held the door open for them. Luckily for these thirsty sailors, the Ocean could sell vodka all night long to Swedish visitors under the “Jolly Mariner Act” of 1977. Overjoyed with their welcome they sang ABBA songs into the early hours of the morning, accompanied by Brendan on the guitar.

As no damage had been caused to any boats when the captain steered the vessel ashore, they were free to depart again the following day, their hold filled with the finest vodka Swedish money could buy.

By lunchtime the next day, the ship was seen on a zigzag course heading towards Sweden. It was an unusual event for a ship to pull in at Stoney Cove, but given the circumstances, who could blame them? 

Crowds Thronged to Dunmore Regatta:

One of the biggest crowds ever seen, attended the annual regatta in Dunmore East on August Bank Holiday Monday, 1961. Favoured by excellent weather conditions, the occasion was unanimously voted the most successful regatta to date. Rain held off until the final event was being concluded, a piece of good fortune for organisers, participants and spectators alike. A light, steady breeze provided ideal sailing conditions for the dinghies.

The day offered something for everyone. The duck hunt provided its share of excitement, while the yacht and dinghy races drew strong interest along the harbour walls and surrounding cliffs. For many, however, the highlight of this popular aquatic fixture was the thrilling speedboat race, which brought colour, noise and excitement to the waters of the harbour.

Equally impressive was the water-skiing display, where three skilful demonstrators formed a daring human pyramid, one standing on the shoulders of the other two, to the amazement of the watching crowd. The magnificent, expensive and beautifully coloured speedboats added further spectacle to an already splendid scene.

A delightful programme of music was provided by the St. Patrick’s Brass Band of Waterford, whose lively performance added greatly to the festive atmosphere throughout the afternoon. As evening fell, many of those who had spent the day by the harbour adjourned to the local Fisherman’s Hall, where the regatta dance brought the celebrations to a happy and fitting conclusion.

It was a day that showcased Dunmore East at its very best — a perfect blend of sport, music, community and seaside charm — and one that lived long in the memory of all who were fortunate enough to attend.

"The all-important results will be listed under the next photo” 

The Dunmore East Regatta of 1961 drew one of the largest crowds ever seen in the village. Blessed with fine weather, lively competition and a festive atmosphere, the day proved to be the most successful regatta held in Dunmore up to that time.

Events on the water, music on shore and a strong sense of community combined to make it a memorable occasion for all who attended.

Below are the full results from the day:

Sailing and Rowing Events:

Dinghy Race (Perpetual Challenge Cup, donated by the Ocean Hotel)

Winners: Mr. John Gibbon and Miss Jane Gibbon, Dunmore.

Yacht Race (Haven Hotel Trophy, organised by Waterford Harbour Sailing Club)

Winner: Mr. Redmond Colfer, New Ross, sailing his 18’ Medmaid.

Model Yacht Race:

1. The Asgard — Master Thos. McGrath, Dunmore

2. The Endeavour — same owner

Open Pair-oared Boats:

1. Peter Power and Liam Fitzgerald, Dunmore

2. Francis Tritschler and Michael Kennedy

Single-oared Boats (Under 16):

1. David Carroll, Dunmore

2. John Murphy, Dunmore

Pair-oared Boats (Killea and Carbally only):

1. Liam Fitzgerald and Peter Power

2. John Martin and Tim Burke

Open Rowing Race (Lady and Gentleman):

1. Liam Fitzgerald and Angela Galgey

2. Peter Power and Helen Murphy

Powerboat Events:

Outboard Motor-Boat Race

1. Mr. A. Cullen, Dublin

2. Mr. John Aylward, Waterford

Speedboat Race

1. Rev. Neil, Wexford

2. Mr. G. Murphy, New Ross

3. Mr. N. Greated, Wexford

Pillow Fight:

Winner: Master Pat Murphy, Waterford

Swimming Events:

Men’s Swimming Race, 100 yards Handicap:

1. A. Guinness

2. D. Berg

50 yards Swimming Race, Boys Under 16:

1. C. Hatton

2. Conor Molloy, Tramore

Girls Under 16 Swimming Race:

1. M. Tyrell

2. Irene Hamilton, Waterford

Ladies’ Swimming Race, 75 yards Handicap:

1. Laura Kenny, Tramore

2. G. Collins

Swimming Race, Boys and Girls Under 12:

1. Miss G. Teesdale (under 10 years)

2. Master Bill Moss, Kilkenny

Novelty and Fancy Dress Events:

Children’s Jink Race

1. D. Carroll and T. Murphy

2. T. Teesdale and M. Buggy

Fancy Dress Boats

1. Dr. Russell and family, Glasshouse, Co. Kilkenny (Goldilocks and the Three Bears)

2. Mr. G. O’Neill, Miss A. Nugent and Miss Z. Ballantine (Neptune and Subjects)

Best-dressed Crew

1. Mr. O. Norwood and family, Dunmore (Mad Hatter’s Tea Party)

2. Master N. Murphy and companions, Dunmore (Mexicans)

Most Original Entry

Master D. Carroll and Master T. Murphy, Dunmore, dressed as the crew of the Asgard.

Duck Hunt:

Prizes were shared by Mr. Owen McBride, Waterford, and Messrs. J. Burke, M. Galgey, P. Power and L. Fitzgerald.

A special tribute was paid to all who took part in the fancy dress boats, for the obvious effort and imagination that went into their displays.

Here we see a fine bunch of lads photographed at Killea Boys National School in 1975 — a snapshot of a time when fashion statements were made with knitwear and a well-shaped fringe. Quite a few of the boys were clearly dedicated followers of style, proudly sporting the famous “pudding bowl” haircut that was all the rage back then. It was a look that required commitment — and possibly a steady hand with the Christmas bowl.

They were a trendy-looking group overall, dressed in patterned jumpers, neat collars, and all whose feet were in view were wearing shoes, each one doing his best to look suitably serious for the camera. School photographs were important occasions, after all.

The boys in the front row had been thoughtfully provided with boards to lie on for the photoshoot — a marked improvement on earlier times. When I had a similar photograph taken, two of us were told to lie directly on the wet ground. Progress, as they say, comes in small but meaningful steps.

This particular photograph made its way into the Evening Herald in 1975, and I suppose they perfectly typified Irish schoolboys of the era — tidy, resilient, slightly windswept, and blissfully unaware that one day their hairstyles would provide great amusement for future generations.

"I only have some of the boys names at the moment, if I get more I will add them. Here are the ones I have."

Eamonn Gavin, , Michael Taylor, Kerry Nicholson. Sean Cullinane, Michael Cummins, Jessie Power, Rory O’Neill, Seamus Mason, Shane Lavin, and Scoby Quann.

This is the full Power family — Katie, Billy Jnr., Helen, Peter and Bill Snr. — posing for what appears to be a formal family photograph. It may have been taken in Frank Snap’s studio in Waterford, or perhaps at Annie Brophy’s, both well known at the time for marking important family occasions with a carefully arranged portrait such as this.

This photograph depicts the herring season in full swing on the quay in Dunmore East, most likely during the early 1970s. At the heart of the scene stands the South and East Coast Fishermen’s Co-op, one of the most advanced fish-processing plants anywhere in the world at the time. Herrings were salted and barrelled there by a workforce second to none, working at a pace dictated entirely by the catches coming ashore.

By the time I started working there, the old wooden barrels had been replaced with plastic ones. They came in all shapes and sizes, and the lids were forever getting mixed up, rarely creating a proper seal. The co-op also had freezing facilities for mackerel, which were transported by lorry from Killybegs. Each fish had to be placed into slots on a moving conveyor belt feeding the gutting machine. It was manageable work for a few hours, but after sixteen hours standing at the line, the strain began to tell. I remember later sitting at the counter in Bill’s, still seeing glasses sliding past me — a lingering illusion brought on by staring at the conveyor belt all day.

Sprats were frozen there as well, usually arriving from Union Hall around 4:00 p.m. on Friday evenings, just as workers were preparing to enjoy the weekend. The catch was loaded into plate freezers and had to be removed every four hours, often meaning an entire night without sleep. It wasn’t popular work, but it was done all the same — all part of the job and the season.

Before anyone went home each day, every inch of the shed had to be spotless. Not so much as a single fish scale on the floor was tolerated. I don’t know if the co-op ever received an award for cleanliness, but it certainly deserved one.

For frost or snow to be present on the pier, the weather would have needed to be extremely cold, as the salt air usually melts it quickly. The scene in this photo must have been captured on one of the coldest days of 1967. 

Men can be seen topping up barrels of herring at the bottom of the photo. This had to be done because the fish contracted after being salted, and what had been a full barrel when first packed often ended up only two-thirds full the following day. Fish would then be taken from one such barrel and used to top up the others.

On a cold day like the one seen here, the men’s hands would have been numb from the cold and from the near-frozen brine surrounding the fish. Rolling a cigarette with frozen, wet hands was no easy task. It’s easy to see why many young men today prefer working in call centres — the fishing industry was a livelihood for only the toughest of men.

To Be Continued...