The wanderer at Kingstown and John Masefield THE WANDERER AT KINGSTOWN By Cormac F. Lowth The great man-made harbour of Dun Laoghaire, formerly Kingstown, was conceived and built as a harbour of refuge for sailing ships in distress in Dublin Bay and although it fulfilled this function reasonably well for many decades after completion, it…
U-35 in Dingle during WW2 Ireland’s Close Encounter with German U-Boat By Denis Martin FTU At 4pm on the afternoon of Wednesday the 4th October 1939 the realities of World War 2 reached the shores of the Dingle Peninsula. The residents of Ballymore, a fishing village 3 miles west of Dingle, noticed a strange craft…
Saint-Malo by Eric Duhan Once you touch ground in Saint-Malo you are entering a place steeped in history from the very first time when man set foot in Western Europe. In the earlier centuries the visitors first view of the city was from out to sea as the city was surrounded by salt marches. It…
Legends of the Lusitania LEGENDS OF THE LUSITANIA The sinking of the Lusitania by a torpedo from U20 off the Old Head of Kinsale on Friday 7 May 1915 was the single greatest shipwreck tragedy in Irish waters. Some 1200 men, women and children died. A warning to intending passengers had been placed beside the sailing notice in…
Original Newspaper Report PETER M’KINLIE, GEORGE GIDLEY, ANDREW ZEKERMAN, AND RICHARD ST. QUINTIN Executed for Piracy and Murder, December 19th, 1765 Original Newspaper Report BEFORE we enter upon the bloody deeds of these inhuman monsters, we shall present our readers with an account of the cruel fortune of Captain Glass, who had fought against the…
Coastguard Lifesaving Carts By far the largest number of shipwrecks occur when ships come into unplanned contact with the shore. In less enlightened days the local population took these events to be an unexpected bonus and opportunity for acquiring wealth. Slaughter of ships crew and passengers was common. The wrecking of the Spanish Armada around…
Smuggling in the eighteenth and early nineteenth Century The eighteenth and early nineteenth centuries are described as the golden age of smuggling. From the perspective of the present time, a slightly romantic and rather innocent appraisal has been made of that period. Richard Platt examines this interpretation in his recent book. (1) In a chapter entitled “Myth…
Where are the Barges Last river trip brought tears Midsummer’s Day 1961 saw the last commercial passage of a Guinness barge on the River Liffey. According to Al Byrne in his most entertaining book “Guinness Times – My Days in the World’s Most Famous Brewery” it was 6 p.m. when the 80-foot long by 17-foot-one inch-wide barge, Castleknock,…
A Mystery click on any picture to enlarge it for another account of this story, see here (click). This story will be on TG4 Player until 16 November 2014. Inis Oir is the smallest of the Aran Islands, measuring about two miles by three miles. From a maritime history perspective, it is best known for the wreck of…
This article was first published in “an tAtlantach”. Reissued here with the kind permission of the author and an tAtlantach Author: Dr James Patrick Keating At 03:40am on 15 August 1949 Valentia Radio received a report from the British trawler Stalberg which had been fishing off the Aran Islands in the West of Ireland; “Airplane down in Galway…