The Red Hut aka The Red Shed, Newry River

 

There are times, when researching local maritime history, when you come across a seemingly innocuous building, or an old slipway, or a weir and it spirals out of all control, opening up avenues that you'd love to have the time to pursue. 
The iconic Red Hut on the Newry River (aka the Clanrye River) is a perfect example. Basically its just a corrugated iron shed, painted an unusual rusty colour almost on the border between county Down and county Louth, the Republic and the North of Ireland, the EU and the UK. As far as I can see, it has no protected status at all.

Back in the 1830s, the Newry Navigation Company, eager to get decent sized ships up to Newry and beyond, were keen to enlarge the Newry Ship Canal, a three-and-a-half mile stretch of water that linked Newry to Carlingford Lough. The canal stopped short of the lough itself with a small portion uncanalised (if that's a word) around Narrow Water.

In order to maintain this small stretch, the river was dredged and the mud and silt deposited between the southern mainland and Nun's Island. (This island had at one time housed a small mediaeval convent. Perversely, there is another Nun's Island near Haulbowline at the entrance to the lough - the sisters obviously loved a bit of insularity) This formed a causeway, locally called the Looby or Luby, at the end of which the Red Shed now stands.

The manmade embankment constructed from the mud and silt dredged from the Newry River. From the Lawrence collection of the NLI, dated roughly 1900, there is a complex of huts and sheds at the end of the embankment

The huts and sheds at the end of the new embankment (under progress in the map above) were for a variety of different purposes. There was a ferry across the river going from county Louth to within a mile of Warrenpoint, which linked in with the Great Northern Railway spar line between Newry and Warrenpoint. In fact there was a station at Warrenpoint and at one point, the station master also ran the ferry boats. Naturally, the ferry company needed premises for storage of equipment and such, so they had a building at the end of the Looby. Later on, after 1923, when the country was partitioned, the customs officials in the Republic used the location too.

Photo by Lee Maginnis

But the red shed itself, (and I have no idea when it was built and if it had any predecessors at all,) was used by those hardy men known as lamplighters, whose thankless task it was to go up and down that stretch of the river and light all the buoys and beacons every evening and dowse them every morning. The shed would contain oil and other spare parts used for the job. Presumably, when the two magnificent round towers designed by Allan MacDonnell to lead boats from the lough to the river came into operation in 1887, they became an additional part of the lamplighters' work schedule.

Another photo by Robert French from the NLI Lawrence collection, looking towards the lough from the northern terminus of the Narrow Water ferry. Note the perches in the river that would have been lit by the lamplighters as well as the leading light round tower on the right hand side of the image. Note also the absence of the stone beacon adjacent to the Narrow Water keep, and the rail line (bottom left) which closed in 1965

Lamplighters operated in Dundalk Bay, in the Boyne estuary, on the Shannon and the Foyle and possibly the Liffey. They could well have been in other places as well. They normally used flat-bottomed boats that could approach beacons. Often the lighting of the lamp involved climbing up the beacon and its a wonder that more weren't killed in the course of their duties than actually were, particularly when the weather suddenly turned foul.

The red shed from very close to the border on the northern side of the river. Note the sweeping in a downward direction towards the sea of the Mountains of Mourne on the northern side of the river.

It seems that one Thomas Boyle of Drummullagh, Omeath was a lamplighter on the Newry River in the latter part of the 19th century. A former seaman, he was also a river pilot. On the 1911 census, he was described as a 64-year-old lightkeeper under the (Warrenpoint) Harbour Authority. Later on, three generations of Quinns tended the lights, the last of them being Tom Quinn from Omeath. In the locality, the red shed was always known as Tom's shed.

Owen Connolly photo

And so a simple shed in a lazy backwater can lead to lamplighters, a ferry service, a railway line, and a custom's post. For Lee Maginnis, who visited recently, the Narrow Water keep has strong ancestral links, as the Clan Magennis attacked and overran the castle in the 1600s as a reprisal for the death of Laressa Magennis there.

Many motorists catch a glimpse of the shed as they fly down the A2 or the R173. It is doubtful that the majority of them are aware of the rich history of the area that can be gleaned from such a humble edifice.