2008 October 19 archive at Tims Times

Archive for October 19th, 2008

Wexford Quays

Published October 19, 2008 in Wexford, History, Ireland and Maritime. 2 Comments

Trawlers moored on the quays at Wexford. The only remaining commercial activity on the quays of Wexford harbour are these Mussel boats, who harvest from the Mussel beds in the harbour, and unload their blue mussel cargo on the ferry bank breakwater side of the river Slaney, opposite to the side these photos are taken. Earlier in the 1800’s there was a vibrant shipping industry with wharves and shipbuilding, there are old photos of the quay full of sailing ships. In the earlier part of the 20th century there were shallow draft coasters arriving on the quays from the UK and continent, delivering directly to the warehouses on the quays, but due to the silting and hazardous navigation in the harbour further development of the port was not possible, and Rosslare took over as the main port of Wexford now all of the warehouses are gone, some of the granary buildings have been preserved but most of it is commercial property and apartments. Some of the pubs on the quay have a few relics from the old days. The nearby Rosslare Harbour is a deep water port and has regular traffic with the UK and the continent, then there is Waterford further along the coast to the South east and of course Dublin to the North. The construction of the dykes in the late 1800’s on the North and South sides of the harbour to reclaim land in polder fashion to form the sloblands was the reason that the harbour silted up, and also the construction of Rosslare harbour contributed to this silting up, this and the change of currents led to some coastal erosion and deposition in the harbour and the sea slowly swallowed up the Forth Village where some of my ancestors came from, many of them seafarers, there is no trace of the village now.
The Vikings were probably the first to discover the mud and silt in the harbour around 300AD, no doubt a few of them ran aground on the sandbanks and the named the place Veisafjorðr which means harbour of the mudflats and the name became Wexford eventually. A few notable Wexford mariners are John Barry “father of the US Navy” ( debatable if you meet any John Paul Jones fans) and Robert McClure of Northwest Passage fame. No wonder I chose a career at sea, with all the salty blood in my veins.

Size matters

Published October 19, 2008 in cars, Ireland, from Erin, stating the obvious and At home. 2 Comments

While the size of Ireland’s economy has grown since I left, the size of the parking spaces is still the same. The only space left was between these two behemoths, I was sorely tempted to drive in at speed and scrape steel, but I had a hire car and the owners of the beemers were probably lawyers. Or their wives, it was after all the Brown Thomas multi story. For some reason a lot of people feel the need to extend their egos with large motor vehicles, the likes of which were never meant for the Irish inner city road network. When I was a young lad, farmers had Land Rovers for pulling beasts in boxes around the highways and byways to marts and horse races, note the term Land Rover, for roving the land, not the city. These days it’s the yummy mummy’s and yuppies and anybody else who feels the need to drive a big fuck off jeep, in the city mind, you wouldn’t want to be getting any shit or dirt on the alloy wheels. There should be a test (no gobshites) before being allowed to buy one and you should have to own a horse or something, but the car salesmen don’t give a shite either. No one cares and everybody complains? How does that work?

Apparently there was once two way traffic on the Main Street in Wexford, but the propulsion method was horses, and the only fumes were from manure. This is a classic example of Irish parking, halfway up on the path as if that will make it better, no consideration or thought put into this manouvre. The pram drivers are forced out on the road, into the raging torrent of traffic. Pedestrians and cyclists might squeeze by, but could scrape the paintwork, oh dear. I didn’t notice any scrapes but I walked on the outside, the cyclist who swerved to avoid me while I was taking the picture might have done some damage as he mounted the path and made for the space between a car and a hard place…..bloody photographers, a menace to society!