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Wexford Quays

Published October 19, 2008 in Wexford, History, Ireland and Maritime. 1 Comment

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.

Liverpool (Learphol as Gaeilge)

Published March 29, 2008 in Irishness, graffiti, Liverpool, Police, going ashore, photos, Religion, Ireland, Irish, England, Catholic, History and On the ship. 3 Comments

Famine

I cycled into the city of Liverpool from the docks to have a look around on Easter Monday, we had previously that day tied up in the Huskisson branch dock after going through the Langton locks, a fairly hairy business on the best of days. Anyway I was at the end of the dock taking a photo of the ship when this big white van pulled up, and in it were two big coppers with body armour and the utility belts with cuffs and radios and jaysus know what else.The driver scowls at me and says (THICK SCOUSE ACCENT), what are you doin’?, “I’m off that ship” I point at the subject of the photograph, (SCOUSE)“takin’ a picture of yer own ship, are yeh?” I think I nodded at this when he says “yer, not supposed to be takin’ pictures down here” and that was that, apparently I neglected to read the notice that said “no photography” as I left the gangway, or I would have if there had been such a notice, anyway I was allowed to proceed as the UK isn’t a police state…..

I headed into town and visited Paddy’s Wigwam, for some reason a remnant of my Catholicism pushed me in that direction and it was Easter Monday, it was closed due to a TV recording for HTV so I took a photograph (and played with it in photoshop), I took a few more photos and wandered around the town, it felt familiar even though it was my first visit. I found a memorial to the Famine in the city, I stood at it and was silent, I didn’t take a photograph. I cycled onwards and managed to stay away from anything to do with the Beatles except for seeing some graffiti entitled “Sgt.Pepper spray” very clever.

Beatles
I went to Bootle, won’t be doing that again. Sorry Bootle.

On the way back I found a plaque in English and Irish on the wall near the Clarence Dock gates, 1.3 million Irish people passed the spot where I stood 160 odd years previously avoiding the starvation, I don’t know what I felt. I felt Irish and sad. I took more photos, as I did the white cop van passed me by again, shit I thought and tried to look like I wasn’t the same person. They kept going, and so did I.

Later back on the ship, the mate came into my office, out of breath”The Police” he gasped, slow down I said to him…. “The Police are looking for you”, shite I thought, so I walked down to the control room, and there was my old pal from earlier, “Good evening, Sir, sorry to bother you but you are under arrest for……..only taking the piss, he handed me the following notice, making me understand his suspicion from earlier, he went to explain about all the crooks in the area and warned us to be on the alert, and then he shook my hand and said “good luck now to you” put on his cap and away he went.

Police warning

North Pole

Published December 16, 2007 in Books, Ice, History and environment. 1 Comment

Reading a great book about polar explorers from the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th, probably not a book to be reading when on a ship because of the amount of shipwrecks and all the disasters that happen to the various explorers, great read all the same.

I was working at a chart agents in Sweden a few years ago and had to organise charts for the Icebreaker Odens expedition to the North Pole, seen below doing icebreaking in the Gulf of Bothnia last year. The charts were Canadian and US charts, but the area around the pole doesn’t really have a detailed sea chart, theres no point, or there is the North Pole, but apart from that it’s just ice. So they use a plotting chart. Oden’s and a US icebreaker called Healy’s expedition is well documented on a few sites like…..HOTRAX05 and ARCTIC EXPLORERS and SCIENCE DAILY and there are tons more. Oden was the first non nuke ice breaker to reach the pole. It is also a sign of the decrease in ice thickness at the pole that such an expedition was possible.

Gladiator Graffiti

Published December 7, 2007 in Tunisia, graffiti, Tourist and History. 0 Comments

Thysdrus is the latin name for El Djem, whose amphitheater was built in the 2nd century AD, 800 years later some guy called “J.Montl” among others while on a visit there decided to carve his name into the stone. In 1914, the same year the “Great War” broke out and 2 years before the Easter Rising. I thought that the Gladiator film was filmed here but apparently not.

J.Montl from somewhere on earth semi-immortalized in the stone of El Djem.

Best Roman ruins in Africa say the tourist blurb, and better preserved than the Coliseum, never been there so I couldn’t tell you.

The same year the Panama Canal was opened and the first ship to sail through was the SS Ancon seen below puffing out a load of black smoke.

Nelsons Arm

Published November 29, 2007 in Rum, naval heroes, Admirals and History. 1 Comment

Nelson has a lane named after him in Santa Cruz de Tenerife, I suppose it could be a bit of Spanish irony giving the great man a lane when he lost his arm trying to take Santa Cruz in 1797. In the end the Spanish & French fleet felt the wrath of Nelson in the battle of Trafalgar in 1805. Although he died in the battle his legacy remains and he is one of Britain’s national heroes. There was even a Nelson’s column in Dublin until 1966 when it got damaged badly from a bomb by the IRA, Dublin Corporation then decided to demolish what was left and called in the “experts” from the army who used too much explosive and broke every window on O’Connell Street when they pushed the plunger.
Back to Nelson, he joined the Navy at age 12, and by the time of the battle of Copenhagen in 1801 he had lost an arm and an eye, he was able to use his half blindness as an excuse for not seeing a signal to stop attacking. The Danes suffered a crippling defeat, one of their national disasters.

After his death he was preserved in a cask of rum, for the voyage back to Blighty and apparently rum rations were stopped, the cask was empty of liquid when it arrived in port giving birth to the phrase Nelson’s Blood for rum and various sea shanty’s like this one….a few verses of

Nelsons Blood
Oh, a drop of Nelson’s blood wouldn’t do us any harm
Oh, a drop of Nelson’s blood wouldn’t do us any harm
Oh, a drop of Nelson’s blood wouldn’t do us any harm
And we’ll all hang on behind.
So we’ll roll the old chariot along
An’ we’ll roll the golden chariot along.
So we’ll roll the old chariot along
An’ we’ll all hang on behind!

Oh, a plate of Irish stew wouldn’t do us any harm
Oh, a plate of Irish stew wouldn’t do us any harm
Oh, a plate of Irish stew wouldn’t do us any harm
And we’ll all hang on behind.
So we’ll roll the old chariot along
An’ we’ll roll the golden chariot along.
So we’ll roll the old chariot along
An’ we’ll all hang on behind!

Note that the second verse talks about Irish stew, no need to guess where a lot of the crew came from, in fact Ireland sent a lot of cannon fodder to the Napoleonic Wars fighting for King George and Napoleon some even having been press ganged into the Royal Navy were subsequently captured by the French and eventually fought as soldiers in the Regiment Irlandaise. (Which later was disbanded by the Bourbons and the remainder became the beginning of the first Foreign Legion)

Nelson after losing his arm

The portrait of Nelson was done after the loss of the arm but before the loss of the eye, his own words can be found on the website http://www.admiralnelson.org/ he says about his hair going white after the shock of losing his arm.

Another interesting link describes his funeral a website called Portcities.
I imagine that Nelson had Scandinavian forefathers, his name and his birthplace in Norfolk would indicate so even though I don’t have any proof, maybe there are Nelson scholars among the readers of this blog who know more about the great man? Be my guest and leave a comment.

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Be my guest and leave a comment if you like!