More politeness from the old IRA


From the Robinson Family Album 1906 (NLI)



According to the witness statement of Michael Coleman in the military history archives, at this time of the War of Independence, a small company of men had been detailed to watch out for a yacht carrying arms for the rebels that was supposed to land between Old Head of Kinsale and Galley Head. It may have been that this was what the IRA needed the telescope for.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Ballast Bank, Wexford

Image
I am indebted to Redmond O'Brien - how much more Wexfordian can you get? - for alerting me to the unusual green buoy marking the danger of the Ballast Bank situated in Wexford harbour. For some reason, this light does not appear on Trabas, one of the very few omissions I have come across in that wonderful resource. In fact, I have found nothing online about the light. Regarding the Ballast Bank, itself, it is an artificial island, constructed so that ships might pick up or discharge ballast on entering or leaving Wexford Harbour. Most sources give the date of construction as 1937, though the architecture of Ireland site - which really should have the inside track on these sort of things - dates the island back to 1831. I'm no expert, but the light itself seems older than 1937. Someone should bring it in to the Antiques Roadshow. Below, a drone's eye view of the island, which I filched from Wexford Hub, an excellent site about all things Wexford.
Read more

Tidal beacons

Image
My granddaughter, Summer, and niece, Rachel, obviously enjoying one of the fourteen tidal beacons between Coney Island and the county Sligo mainland Before you ask, no, I made up the term tidal beacon . I'm not even sure that its accurate and if anyone has any better suggestions, please let me know. According to Mrs Wikipedia, there are three tidal islands in Ireland, which she lists as Omey Island in Galway, Coney Island in Sligo and Inishkeel in Donegal. I have visited all three and can confirm they can all only be walked to when the tide is low. Coney is my favourite because it has a pub. Off the top of my head, I can think of three more - Shenick Island off the coast of Skerries in county Dublin; Feenish or Finnis Island near Carna; and, a bit doubtfully, Mutton Island in county Clare, to where, I am told, it is possible to walk roughly once every twenty years at super-low tide, with the water up to your shoulders. I am sure there must be more but the top of my head is very cro...
Read more

Rotten Island, county Donegal

Image
When this blog started, many moons ago, it was a simple 'visit a lighthouse, take a photo or two and add a bit of info' sort of a blog. For better and worse, it has become much more historically minded and the need to have visited has gone. So it is something of a breath of fresh air to get out and actually visit an Irish lighthouse I had never seen. So, an unexpected free day at the start of September, saw me up early and driving across the country to south-west Donegal to bag the last of the easily baggable lighthouses. I could have taken a boat tour and got pretty close to Rotten Island but the distance from the mainland seemed minimal. Basically, I got to Bruckless and, with the help of Google Maps, headed for the Atlantic View B & B, which ended at a stony beach. Parking up (making sure I left a gap for any boat-laden cars to get through) the lighthouse was visible from the beach (see next photo) The tide was low so I walked up the beach towards the lighthouse, eventua...
Read more