On my final Saturday in Ireland I was determined to do a new parkrun course. One of the nearest was Clonmel in south Tipperary, 50km from Waterford. That meant an early start, jogging to Waterford railway station to catch the 7.20am Limerick Junction train up the Suir valley. Some 45 minutes later I was by the banks of the river in Clonmel on a cool overcast morning, in the shadow of Co. Waterford mountains.
Like Drogheda, Clonmel is a walled medieval town which suffered at Cromwell’s hands. The West Gate is a 19th-century reconstruction of an older structure. A brass plaque at the gate commemorates Laurence Sterne, whose great work Tristram Shandy draws on the first 10 years of the author’s life growing up in the town barracks. Inside the West Gate is O’Connell St (formerly King St) which has been Clonmel’s main street for centuries. Beyond the West Gate is Irishtown where the Normans banished the old Irish.
The Main Guard is the focal point of Clonmel facing the West Gate down O’Connell St and is a fine two-storey symmetrical building with design elements based on works by Sir Christopher Wren. Seventeenth century Tipperary was ruled by James Butler, Duke of Ormond, who erected this building as a courthouse in 1673. Here anti-Penal Laws agitator Father Nicholas Sheehy was found guilty, before being hanged, drawn and quartered. The building was later used as a market house, barracks, public house and is now a museum. Considered one of Ireland’s great tholsels, the building acquired the name “the Main Guard” during its time as a barracks.
Friend of King Edward I and wealthy Clonmel landlord, Otho de Grandison, was reputed to have invited the Franciscans to construct a friary in the centre of town in 1269. Only the tower survives from that era and most of the present structure dates to 1884. Earlier this year the Franciscans vacated the church after 600 years due to “ageing and reducing membership” following a similar closure of Waterford’s friary in 2019. In June Clonmel’s friary re-opened “for limited use as a venue for occasional Mass and Prayer” while the residential part is refurbished to accommodate Ukrainian refugees.
Narrow Mitchell St links the shopping precincts of O’Connell St and Parnell St. The umbrellas were certainly needed as 2023 was Ireland’s wettest July on record with 215% of expected rainfall due to “a period of low-pressure systems drifting across the country”. Those systems were still active when I arrived in early August. Irish summer, huh?
The original building on this Parnell St site was Hamerton Hall, a 17th century mansion built by timber merchant Richard Hamerton. It was rebuilt in 1881 as Clonmel Town Hall and extended in 1993. According to the NIAH, “the highly ornate facade and large scale of this Dutch Renaissance-style building make it a very notable part of the streetscape.” Outside is a monument to the 1798 rebellion with an inscription from John Kells Ingram’s The Memory of the Dead: “Then here’s their memory – may it be for us a guiding light, to cheer our strife for liberty, and teach us to unite.”
Further along Parnell St is Bianconi House. Daniel Hearn founded the house as a hotel in 1792 but it became famous as the 19th century headquarters of Italo-Irish carriage entrepreneur Charles Bianconi. Bianconi moved to Clonmel in 1809 as a carver and gilder but on his regular trips to Waterford, he realised the need for a cheap and efficient coach system. He began in 1815 with a service from Clonmel to Cahir. His horse-drawn coach service known as “bians” quickly expanded across the south of Ireland, and was cheap and regular, making Bianconi “the Ryanair of the 19th century”. At his peak in 1845, before the coming of rail transport, Bianconi had 1400 horses in 123 towns covering 6000km a day.
Sir Richard Morrison designed Clonmel Courthouse in the late 1790s to replace the Main Guard. It was heavily influenced by the work of great Dublin architect James Gandon and its plan owes much to Gandon’s Waterford Courthouse. The most famous trial here was in 1848 when Young Irelanders William Smith O’Brien, Thomas Francis Meagher, Terence Bellew MacManus and Patrick O’Donohoe were tried after the failed rebellion in Ballingarry. All four were sentenced to death for treason though their sentences were later commuted to transportation for life in Van Diemen’s Land.
Old St Mary’s church on Mary St is a Church of Ireland building dating to 1500 though it was severely damaged by Cromwell’s forces. Apart from the base of the bell tower and the 16th century east and west windows, the current building is mainly 19th century additions. The last remains of Clonmel’s town walls adjoin St Mary’s graveyard.
This memorial at Kickham Barracks Plaza commemorates Royal Irish Regiment soldiers killed in the Second Anglo-Boer War (1899-1902). The regiment was based in what was then called Victoria Barracks and was disbanded after independence in 1922. The barracks were renamed for local revolutionary and author Charles Kickham who was involved in the 1848 rebellion before joining the Fenians in the late 1850s. In 1865 Kickham was convicted of treason and sentenced to fourteen years’ penal servitude. His great 1873 novel Knocknagow, set in Co. Tipperary, is about the life of the Irish peasantry and the workings of the Irish land system. Kickham Barracks closed in 2012 and a new civic plaza opened here earlier this year.
It was almost 9.30am which meant it was time for parkrun. The course goes along the river down the Blueway towards Carrick-on-Suir. The 53km-long Suir Blueway from Cahir to Carrick-on-Suir opened in 2019 and consists of a walking and cycling trail for 21km from Carrick to Clonmel and 32km of waterway from Clonmel to Cahir which can be canoed or kayaked. Parkrunners (and walkers) were just getting a taste of the Blueway heading 2.5km out east and the same distance back but it was an enjoyable excursion nonetheless.
There was well-earned cake at the end to celebrate one runner’s birthday and another’s 50th parkrun. Of course I had to indulge to celebrate my own 185th (or so) run and my 83rd different course.
After all that history and exercise I walked 15 minutes to Clonmel station and caught the train back to Waterford. The fare is cheap and plenty of day-trippers were heading east for shopping and Waterford’s Spraoi festival. But even in my short visit it was clear that there was a lot to like about Clonmel itself.
Situated on the Atlantic coast 12km from Waterford, Tramore has long been the city’s escape valve. The drawcard is the Trá Mhór, the magnificent 5km-long “Big Strand” that gave Tramore its name, where visitors flock in the warmer months, even though like the 2023 summer, the weather is not always kind. A sleepy little village until the late 18th century, Tramore became popular thanks to the Prince of Wales (later George IV) whose patronage of Brighton made sea bathing all the rage. A Waterford banker named Bartholomew Rivers built a hotel (likely the Grand Hotel) and assembly rooms for wealthy city folk, and had a Tramore suburb named for him. By early 19th century Tramore was home to 3000 people.
The arrival of the Waterford railway in 1853 allowed people of all classes to visit the seaside. For the next century, day trippers took the train from the city to enjoy the beach, and it was even used to escape conflict when the civil war came to Waterford in 1922. The railway was unceremoniously removed and ripped up at the start of 1961 and replaced by buses. Tramore’s imposing but sadly disused old railway station is one of the few reminders of the line’s glory days.
The township extends up a hill behind the seafront with the Tramore back strand and the sand dunes in the distance. This shallow intertidal area is enclosed by a substantial spit called Tramore Burrow. The fragile dunes are among Ireland’s largest and are the result of the growth of a spit of shingle and sand across a shallow bay. The back strand dries out at low tide and is connected to the open sea by narrows at Saleen, also known as Rinneshark.
At the top of the hill is Tramore’s imposing Catholic Church of the Holy Cross. The church quickly followed the railway, built between 1856 and 1860. Its imposing spire, visible from Waterford, was added in 1871. As Andy Taylor wrote in Waterford’s historical journal, Tramore’s Gothic-revival church was not only an assertion of Catholic presence in the post famine period, but a symbol of prosperity dominating the town and giving it an air of permanence.
One of my favourite buildings in Tramore is the cosy Ritz bar on Newtown Road, with its magnificent thatched roof. Originally built as three fishermen’s cottages in the 1870s, it was renovated around 1920, with openings remodelled to accommodate the pub and it was fitted with new windows in 1995. According to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, the cottage is part of an increasingly rare vernacular tradition in County Waterford, with much of the original form and early fabric intact and a frontage concentrated around a door opening of “some artistic design quality (which) enhances the visual appeal of the site.”
Behind the Ritz is the road to Tramore Pier, a sheltered pier on the west side of Tramore Bay. A small pier existed on this site in the 19th century but was washed away by storms in the 1880s. A sturdier replacement of grey limestone slabs with concrete capping was built in 1907 and a north wall was added to block the backwash from the cliff face. Fishermen used the pier for many years though these days it is the home of pleasure crafts.
I continued my cliff walk past the pier looking out at the ocean with Brownstown Head in the distance. Its two pillars were added in 1823 to warn shipping of the dangers of Tramore Bay, which in a storm was easy to confuse with the entrance to Waterford Harbour on the other side of the Head.
Next up is the sheltered deep water swimming spot at the Guillamene and on a lovely morning I’m regretting not bringing my bathers. I’ve seen two explanations for the meaning of Guillamene, either Irish for “little fish” or French for “resolute protector”.
There has been swimming at the Guillamene since the 1880s though as this quaint sign hints, it was the preserve of men until the 1970s. According to one member of a local swimming club the sign is “a relic of old decency” from the days when the men swam nude. These days bathers are compulsory.
In men only times, women could still swim at nearby Newtown Cove. A Newtown and Guillamene Swimming Club started officially in the 1940s. The club has around 100 members and a hardy core group of 10 to 15 swim all year round. You don’t need to be a member to swim here and visitors are always welcome. However newcomers should take care. One man died here after getting into difficulties in the water, barely a week before I arrived.
The photo below was as close as I got to the Metal Man statue and his two sentries on the headland (frustratingly out of reach on private property). The pillars date to 1823, thanks to a tragedy seven years earlier. In January 1816 three ships were caught in a gale in these waters. The Sea Horse was in convoy with the Boadicea and Lord Melville carrying the second battalion of the 59th Regiment of Foot and families from Ramsgate home to Cork at the end of the Napoleonic War. The weather deteriorated as they approached Ireland and the Sea Horse’s mate, John Sullivan, the only officer familiar with the south Irish coast, fell from the foremast and died. Captain Gibbs attempted to reach Waterford harbour, but the ship ran aground in Tramore Bay. Only 30 men, including the captain and two seamen, survived from the 394 people on board. The other two ships also foundered near Cork with great loss of life. Though Gibbs did not mistake Tramore Bay for Waterford Harbour as is commonly believed, Lloyds of London installed the Metal Man (dressed in a Royal Navy petty officer’s uniform) and his sentries as well as the two towers on Brownstown Head as a warning for shipping to stay out. The metal man has an identical twin in County Sligo.
I walked back via the delightful Doneraile cliff walk. Lord Doneraile, from the St Leger family of County Cork, was the original owner of Tramore and he laid out the walk as a private promenade for his family and friends in the early 19th century.
This 64 pounder gun at the Doneraile Walk was part of a Naval Reserve battery erected in 1891 and was originally located closer to the cliff edge at the site of the original battery.
Several people had taken to the town beach as the day warmed up, taking life saving and surfing lessons. Though the ocean was glassy today, people have surfed at Tramore Bay since the 1960s when Irish surfing pioneer Kevin Cavey first came to work with local lifeguards. Thanks to the knowledge Cavey gained at the 1966 World Championships, the Surf Club of Ireland held the first National Championships in Tramore a year later. That same year the South Coast Surf Club was formed. Now called the TBay surf club, it remains the oldest in Ireland.
My next stop was the Lafcadio Hearn Japanese Gardens. I’ve written about these gardens before, but this was my first visit since they opened in 2014. Hearn spent many childhood summers in Tramore and the gardens follow his life journey from his birth in Greece, his early years in Victorian Ireland and England, his work as a journalist in America, and his life in Japan, where he married and became an English teacher. The gardens are a peaceful oasis and a great tribute to a man whose writings remain a rare western window on 19th century Japanese life.
My final stop was a few kilometres out of town on the road to Waterford to look at the Pickardstown Ambush memorial. The memorial is dedicated to a 1921 incident in the Irish War of Independence where two IRA men were killed. An original shrine was erected here in 1922 but fell into disrepair. The Waterford Graves Association erected the current memorial on the Dunmore Rd in 1947. I’ve written in more detail about the ambush here.
On my recent visit to Ireland I realised a six year ambition to cycle the Waterford Greenway. The 46km Greenway opened in 2017, but has a 150 year history. The Waterford, Dungarvan & Lismore Railway was built in the 1870s during the heyday of Irish rail travel and linked Waterford to Cork via the Lismore-Fermoy and Fermoy-Mallow lines. The 43 miles long WD&LR was a difficult engineering project and costly to build with three viaducts, a long tunnel and a long level-crossing across a causeway. The route struggled to make a profit and though taken over by the Great Southern & Western Railway and later nationalised as part of CIE, it was closed to passenger traffic in 1967 (seven years after the standalone Waterford-Tramore line was also tragically closed). It continued to move freight from Waterford to Dungarvan until the Quigley Magnesite plant closed in 1982. There’s a poignant 15-minute video showing the last train to run the route.
The line was partially reopened in 2003 by the registered charity Waterford & Suir Valley Railway operating a three feet (914mm) gauge railway along 10km of track from Kilmeadan to Waterford. The re-laid WSVR single track line uses the original railway station at Kilmeadan with volunteers operating three diesel locomotives and two purpose-built semi-open bogie passenger carriages. The heritage railway was an immediate hit with local families and tourists alike.
After the successful re-opening, the question became what to do with the rest of the line. The idea emerged of turning it into a rail trail, particularly after the success of the Great Western Greenway on the former Westport to Achill line, which opened in 2011. Studies found that 500 people used that rail trail every day bringing life, tourism and much-needed revenue to the Mayo region. Could a “Déise Greenway” do the same for county Waterford?
After negotiations with line owner CIE, Waterford Council commenced work on a €15m project to build the 46km track. Ireland’s longest greenway, officially called the Waterford Greenway, opened in 2017, linking Waterford with Dungarvan. With stations at Kilmeadan, Kilmacthomas and Durrow as well as 11 bridges, three viaducts and a 400m tunnel, the greenway was marketed as part of Ireland’s Ancient East, though this was a very modern offering. We hired bikes for two days to check it out.
Like the Western Greenway, Waterford Greenway was an instant success. Kilmeadan was the home of a well-known co-operative creamery which became part of Waterford Co-op in 1964. But it lost its award-winning cheese-making plant in 2005 and as well as being a dormitory suburb of the city, the village has been rejuvenated with the WSVR and now the Greenway.
The old WD&LR had 53 level crossings all operated by hand. At each crossing was a house where a railway employee manually opened and shut the gates. Above is an example between Kilmeadan and Kilmacthomas. Greenway users must take care crossing the road, but usually there is little traffic apart from the occasional horse rider.
Like Kilmeadan, Kilmacthomas has been rejuvenated by the greenway. The village is halfway between Waterford and Dungarvan, allowing boutique establishments like the Coach House to cater for the growing traffic of cylists next door to the obligatory bike hire. The Coach House is on the grounds of the old Kilmac workhouse. Waterford’s Poor Law Union built the workhouse in 1850, one of 163 workhouses in Ireland dealing with famine suffering. It contained a fever hospital and mortuary. The workhouse closed in 1919, just before the Irish war of independence.
Kilmacthomas station towers over the village on the banks of the River Mahon. Kilmac is the home of Flahavan’s cereal factory where Thomas Dunn began milling Irish oats in the 1780s powered by the fast flowing river. Dunn’s grand-daughter Ellen married Tom Flahavan in the 1840s and their son Edward Flahavan, born 1850, took over the running of the mill and gave it his name. Kilmacthomas prospered in the 1900s. Many families were employed by the mill which used the railway in its supply chain for its Progress porridge oatlets. Nowadays Flahavan’s makes oatmeal and other cereal products for the international market. The seventh-generation family business still uses clean energy and is mostly powered by wind turbines.
The railway reached Kilmacthomas in 1878 and required an eight-arch curved stone viaduct to span the Mahon River. The bridge was built by Smith Finlayson and Company, Glasgow to designs of Dublin and Waterford architect James Otway. Otway was appointed engineer of the Tramore Railway in 1877 and of the WD&LR in 1878. He was also engineer to the Waterford Harbour Board, the Waterford Lunatic Asylum and the Fishguard and Rosslare Railways.
I cycled off the Greenway to view Otway’s magnificent arches from below. According to the National Inventory of Architectural Heritage, the significance of the Kilmac bridge is in the form and construction of the arches, which have retained their original profile, together with the central span incorporating early cast-iron work. “The construction in squared rubble limestone attests to high quality stone masonry, and produces an appealing textured visual effect in the landscape,” the NIAH says.
After Kilmacthomas we got our first view of the Comeragh mountains, where Mahon Falls descend into the Mahon River. The highest peak, Fauscoum (also called Kilclooney Mountain) reaches 792m, the 11th tallest mountain in Ireland. The Comeraghs is a rugged area beloved of climbers and cyclists such as Carrick-on-Suir’s Sean Kelly, winner of four Tour de France green jerseys and the 1988 Vuelta a España. A “very challenging” 160km circuit of the mountains is named in his honour.
We were content to stay on the not-quite-as-challenging Greenway and got another mountain view from the top of the Durrow viaduct. Like its Kilmac counterpart, the Durrow Viaduct is a seven-arch rubble stone railway viaduct over road and river (Tay), also opened in 1878. I was unable to get the view from below.
We stopped at a pop-up cafe at Durrow railway station with its derelict remains of the station office and signal cabin. Durrow was the site of a railway ambush during the War of Independence. On March 3, 1921, the IRA’s Waterford flying column held up a train of jurors bound for the Dungarvan assizes. After British troops arrived by train from the garrison town of Fermoy, there was an exchange of gunfire lasting most of the day. The British were reinforced by truck-loads of troops from Waterford and the heavily outnumbered IRA men escaped in darkness with no casualties though two British soldiers were reportedly killed.
Past the station is the most famous feature on the Greenway, the 400m Ballyvoyle (or Durrow) tunnel. According to the NIAH, the tunnel under a hill contains “elliptical-headed openings…with cut-stone voussoirs, and squared rubble stone soffits forming barrel vault to tunnel with remains of lime render over”. Built in 1878 and lit with oil lamps and candles, it was equipped with electric lights in 2016 for the new Greenway. Also in this area is the Ballyvoyle viaduct, a four-span bridge over the Dalligan river. The bridge was blown up during the Civil War in 1922 and a train crashed into the valley. The viaduct was rebuilt and reopened in July 1924.
After Ballyvoyle, we came into view of the sea. Above is the view towards Clonea Beach and Dungarvan out to Helvick Head and the Gaeltacht area of Ring. Clonea in Irish is Cluain Fhia which means the Meadow of the Deer, which seems less appropriate for a seaside village than it is for Waterford’s other Clonea (sometimes Clonea Power) in the Comeraghs. I did entertain the idea of cycling out to Helvick but the weather worsened and we were content to walk around Dungarvan instead.
To get there we crossed the Barnawee causeway linking Abbeyside with Dungarvan. The causeway straddles two large tidal estuaries crammed with birdlife. The 500m causeway shared traffic with road users and was reputedly the longest gated crossing in Europe. These days cyclists need only contend with pedestrians and birders with long zoom lenses.
At Abbeyside we get our first close-up of Dungarvan harbour on the banks of the Colligan River. In the third century Dungarvan was the home of the Deisi tribe, which gave Waterford its enduring nickname. Dungarvan got its own name from St. Garvan, who founded a monastery in the seventh century. It became an important mediaeval town when the Normans arrived in the late 12th century. In 1463 Edward IV granted Dungarvan to Thomas, Earl of Desmond. He also gave it a daily market from which the customs profits was spent on building and repairing town walls and defences. During the 1640s wars, Lord Inchiquin attacked Dungarvan, an Irish Confederate stronghold, and the town surrendered to Cromwell’s forces. By the 1870s Dungarvan was a popular holiday destination, favoured by wealthy Tipperary farmers who came every autumn to take in the sea air.
Grattan Square is Dungarvan’s town centre. In my childhood, the main road from Waterford to Cork used to run through the square and though the through traffic is now diverted, the square is still clogged with cars. That’s a shame because it is otherwise a pleasant pedestrian space with plenty of pubs, cafes and shops. Eighteenth century Irish parliamentarian Henry Grattan had no connection to Dungarvan, but the square was named for him when local landlord the Duke of Devonshire instigated its construction between 1806 and 1826.
Behind the square is the imposing Dungarvan castle. The Normans built this stronghold around 1210 to defend Dungarvan Harbour and it contains an unusual polygonal shell keep. There is also an enclosing curtain wall, corner tower and gate tower. Inside is an 18th century military barracks used by the British Army and the Royal Irish Constabulary until 1922. During the Civil War, Anti-Treaty forces destroyed the castle but it was refurbished and served as Garda headquarters. Though now open and free for visitors, it closes every Monday and Tuesday so we were unable to view it from the inside.
The lovely Old Market House is now the Dungarvan arts centre. A deed of 1641 refers to “the courthouse” in this area, which may be a reference to this building. However it was more likely built around 1700 as a butter market, with council chambers overhead and markets in front of the building at Market Place. When Inchiquin occupied the town in 1642, he executed the parish priest and his curate, and other prominent citizens here. Local man Edmond Power was also hanged from a window of Market House in 1799 for his involvement with the United Irishmen rebellion of the year before. A Celtic cross was erected to Power’s memory in Gibbon’s Park.
That evening we ate early at the Anchor Bar and enjoyed a beer at the bar of the cosy Local pub on Grattan Square (pictured above) before retiring to Lawlor’s Hotel for the night. Everywhere was packed as Dungarvan, like all other spots on the Greenway, enjoys a renaissance.
We left our bikes overnight in the Dungarvan hire shop which did not open until 9am so I went for an early morning walk at the Augustinian abbey across the Colligan in Abbeyside. The abbey dates from 1290 and was built by monks from Clare Priory in Suffolk, invited by their patron Lord Offaly, Justiciary of Ireland. The tower was a 15th century addition. Inside the ruined chancel is the tomb of Donald McGrath dating to 1470. The McGraths migrated from Thomond (Limerick) to Dungarvan and were church benefactors. The church was ruined in the Cromwellian attack.
After we picked up our bikes for the return trip, we had an unscheduled stop. Barely 7km in, my partner suffered a puncture, reckoning she ran over oyster shells dropped by birds on the causeway (apparently there were several punctures in that area). Luckily the bike hire company provides free service along the Greenway. We rang them up and went back to the nearest roadway. Expecting a significant delay I went into the lovely Railway Cottage for coffee and was surprised to find my partner ready to ride when I came out. They simply swapped one bike for another and did the repairs later.
We stopped again at the Coach House for lunch and approached the River Suir shortly after Kilmeadan station. On a bend of the river is the long established Mount Congreve gardens which re-opened earlier this year after a €6 million investment by Waterford Council which acquired the gardens in 2018. The Gardens were the work of British banker and Tory politician Major Lionel Nathan de Rothschild, who also created Exbury Gardens in the New Forest, Hampshire. Rothschild was a friend of the Waterford garden’s owner and creator Ambrose Congreve, who worked in Air Intelligence for Plans and in Bomber Command and then in the Ministry of Supply during the Second World War. The estate and gardens were familiar to young Raymond Chandler when he holidayed in Waterford with his local-born Quaker mother.
We arrived back in Waterford shortly after lunch just as the pleasant morning weather gave way to clouds and the threat of rain. We enjoyed the last few kilometres on the extension from Gracedieu to the Quay which had opened a month earlier. The plan is to link it with the South East Greenway, the first section of which – 6km from New Ross – has also recently opened. Along with the planned Waterford North Quay development, and a proposed Dungarvan-Mallow Greenway, it is an exciting time for active transport in South East Ireland. The future of the WD&LR promises to be as interesting as its past.
I was back in Waterford in July and August, usually the nicest months though this year it was even wetter than Ireland’s usual. A rare ray of sunshine greeted me as I arrived on Waterford’s Quay looking to the northside where work has started on a pedestrian bridge to link a proposed new train and bus station with the city.
On my first day back in town I tried to get to Mount Misery to take a photo overlooking the city but could not find the entry gap behind Waterford Golf Club. I contented myself with a close-up of Pope’s Tower off Rockshire Road behind the derelict Ard Rí hotel. The tower was owned by the merchant Pope family of Henrietta Street and was likely a folly tower. Andrew Doherty at Tides and Tales speculates it may have been part of a semaphore system to communicate the arrival of ships.
I was keen to visit the newest addition to Waterford’s vibrant museum quarter, the Irish Wake Museum. Situated in a 15th century Cathedral Square almshouse, the museum explores Irish death rituals, traditions and superstitions with the entertaining help of a tour guide in character. “Have you heard the news?” the guide exclaims. “There is a rupture in Christendom”.
That rupture was in mind when I went up John’s Lane to see the Wyse Park Quaker cemetery. Wyse Park was a childhood playground but Quaker link was unknown to me until recent times. The memorial was created in 2014 and includes a landscaped area and wall bearing the names of those buried here. Quakers came to Waterford in the 1650s and the first cemetery at John’s Lane opened in 1689 with 250 people buried there before a second burial site opened in Parliament Street in 1764. Quakers played a major role in the economic and business life of the city. The Jacobs made their first biscuits in Waterford in 1851, the Strangmans began a brewery in 1722, and the Penroses founded Waterford’s glassworks in 1783. Quakers donated the park and graveyard to the city in the 1950s. The park was named for the Wyse family of the Manor of St John.
I went to see older burial grounds the following day. The first stop was Knockeen Dolmen, near Henry de Bromhead’s racing stables in east county Waterford. A dolmen (from Cornish tolmen “hole of a stone”) is a stone table with a wide stone supported by other stones. Knockeen is the largest portal tomb in County Waterford with a double capstone, and is one of the finest examples of Irish dolmens. Erected 5500 years ago, it was likely the tomb of a local chieftain. It contains a small keyhole entrance that may have been used to offer food to the spirits of the dead or for access to rituals. It is not easy to reach as visitors must climb over an unsignposted farm gate, duck under an electric fence, cross a field, then duck under a second electric fence before getting to the tomb. But it is worth the effort.
A few kilometres away is another portal tomb. Like Knockeen, Gaulstown Dolmen is 5500 years old but situated in a small wooden glade, is easier to access from the road. The six tonne capstone rests on two portal stones and a backstone. In Irish Gaulstown is Cnoc an Challaig, hill of the hag or witch. Knockeen and Gaulstown are among 200 surviving portal tombs in Ireland.
Of more recent vintage is the remains of St Martin’s Gate off Spring Garden Alley. The gate was one of three entry points to the medieval city along with Reginald’s Tower and Turgesius Tower. St Martin’s Gate had a portcullis and two flanking towers. In the 12th century the Normans rebuilt the gate and extended the city west. Here, officials collected customs and taxes called murage (from the French word for wall) on goods coming into the city. Outside the gate lay the Benedictine priory of St John’s and Waterford’s oldest bridge, John’s bridge over the St John’s River. The gate fell into disuse in the 15th century as Arundel Gate and Lady Gate were closer to Waterford’s centre. The Sisters of Charity demolished St Martin’s Castle in the 19th century before their orphanage was also removed in the 20th century.
The impressive Beach Tower in Jenkins Lane is one of Waterford’s six surviving walled towers. Built on a rocky mound in a natural defensive position, this 15th century crenelated building allowed a clear view of the river with a view from the battlements upstream to Grannagh Castle in Co. Kilkenny. It was heavily rebuilt in the 17th century. After restoration it was officially reopened in 1996.
There is another Waterford building associated with the Quakers and the Wyses. The three storey over basement Newtown House was erected to designs by great local architect John Roberts (1712-96) and represents an important component of late 18th century heritage. John Wyse, son of Thomas “Bullocks” Wyse, built and lavishly decorated the house, squandering much of his inheritance in the process. A plaque notes that Thomas Wyse was born here in 1791. That Thomas would become an important lieutenant of Daniel O’Connell and marry a niece of Napoleon Bonaparte. Encumbered by debts, John Wyse sold Newtown House to the Religious Society of Friends in 1797 who adapted it as a school based on the Quaker discipline of moderation. They removed the decorative plasterwork “so that all the expense that went into creating a magnificent house came to nothing”. British General Gerard Lake commandeered the property as temporary barracks during the 1798 Rebellion and the opening of the school was postponed to August 1, 1798. Newtown school remains active to this day.
Passage East is 11km east of Waterford on a strategic bend of Waterford Harbour where ferries connect to Ballyhack in Co. Wexford. The Earl of Pembroke Richard de Clare, better known as Strongbow, landed here in 1170 and marched to Waterford. To quash any ideas of Strongbow starting an independent kingdom, King Henry II landed here a year later, beginning the Norman invasion of Ireland in earnest. Cromwell needed to secure Passage in his attempt to take Waterford in 1650 while both William of Orange and James II left Ireland from here after the Battle of the Boyne. There was a failed plan to put Swiss settlers at nearby New Geneva which became the infamous Geneva Barracks after the 1798 rebellion.
A few kilometres down the harbour is Woodstown Beach (not to be confused with Viking Woodstown, 3km upstream of Waterford). I spent many summer Sundays of my childhood here, rain or shine. Swimming was limited to when the tide was fully in and when it was fully out, the water disappeared a good mile into the estuary. Woodstown’s most famous visitor was Jackie Kennedy who stayed six weeks with her children in Woodstown House in 1967 (four years after the assassination of her husband and a year before she married Aristotle Onassis). Amid huge media interest there were boat trips to Dunmore and ferries to Ballyhack to visit the Kennedy homeland in Wexford. Duncannon in Co. Wexford, visible in this photo (far right), was another strategically vital spot for Cromwell in his conquest of the region.
At the end of Waterford harbour is Dunmore East. The beach has the opposite tidal problem to Woodstown. At high tide the beach disappears completely and water laps the breakwall. Visible across the harbour past the yachts is the massive lighthouse at Hook Head (one of the oldest lighthouses in the world). Dunmore’s own impressive though smaller lighthouse is out of sight at the fishing harbour to the right of the picture.
One reason for my visit was to attend celebrations for the 200th anniversary of the birth of Thomas Francis Meagher on August 3. Meagher was an Irish revolutionary, founder of the Irish Brigade which suffered greatly in the American civil war, and an early Montana governor. He also popularised the Irish flag in 1848, though I disagree with the official version how he did that. Earlier in the day we joined historian Donnchadh O Ceallachain on a guided tour of the artifacts in the Meagher room of the Bishop’s Palace and that evening we attended a reception at the Granville Hotel where Meagher was born in 1823. In this photo Granville owner Ann Cusack (a driving force in remembering Meagher in New York, Montana and Waterford) welcomes guests. There were other speeches on aspects of his life and musical entertainment from the Thomas F. Meagher fife and drum band. A big crowd enjoyed a great night in honour of one of Waterford’s finest.
When I told friends that I was visiting Drogheda for a couple of days there were some odd looks. The county Louth town 50km north of Dublin is not usually the first choice to spend time in Ireland and there were uncharitable mutters that Cromwell had the right idea when he massacred the town in revenge for Protestant deaths in the 1640s Confederate Wars. Nonetheless that was where I was heading in very Irish non-summer summer weather. The plan was to take in sights accessible on foot in and near the town and I took the pleasant 30 minute train ride up the north Dublin coastline from Connolly Station getting closer to the coast (like at Malahide below) than is possible by road.
With a population of over 40,000 and part of Dublin’s commuter belt, Drogheda is now the 11th largest town in Ireland. Its name derives from the Irish Droichead Átha ‘bridge of the ford’. Looking downstream on the Boyne River is the modern De Lacy footbridge, a reminder of Drogheda’s medieval history. Anglo-Norman Hugh De Lacy was part of Henry II’s invasion force in 1172 which took Dublin after it landed near Waterford. De Lacy was rewarded for his efforts with the stewardship of Dublin Castle and the lordship of Meath. While there were previous Viking settlements on both side of the Boyne, De Lacy is considered the founder of Drogheda as he granted its first charter in 1194. The bridge named for him opened in 2005. Behind it is the magnificent 30m,18-span limestone and iron Boyne Viaduct linking Dublin and Belfast by rail. Dating from the 1850s it towers over the eastern approach to the town.
Pre-dating De Lacy’s Drogheda is Old Mellifont Abbey, a few kilometres west of town. In 1142 St Malachy of Armagh built Mellifont, Ireland’s first Cirstercian monastery, with help from St Bernard of Clairvaux’s monks. In Irish “An Mhainistir Mhór” (the Big Monastery), it was a massive structure housing 100 monks and 300 lay brothers. Mellifont was the site of a famous synod in 1152 which set out the Irish church in Roman fashion and created the four archbishopal sees of Armagh, Dublin, Tuam and Cashel. The abbey became a private residence after Henry VIII dissolved the monasteries in 1539. The Treaty of Mellifont, which ended the Nine Years War, was signed here in 1603, and William of Orange used the abbey as headquarters during the nearby Battle of the Boyne in 1690. The monks moved to New Mellifont Abbey 7kms away and the old monastery descended into ruin. Among the few surviving structures are the two-storey octagonal lavabo (centre of image) where monks washed their hands before eating and the chapter house (left) which served as a common room.
North of Mellifont is evidence of earlier Irish history at Monasterboice, Irish for “monastery of Buite”. Saint Buite (Buíte mac Bronach or Boetius) founded this settlement in the late 5th century which makes it older than Clonmacnoise and Glendalough. Little remains of the monastery except for a graveyard which contains the ruins of two ancient churches, a round tower and three splendid high crosses. They include the 10th century Muiredach’s High Cross at 5.5m, the tallest high cross in Ireland. The 28m-tall round tower has an underground foundation of 60cms which is small for round towers. The entrance is above ground level to maintain structural integrity. It was built in the late 10th century and damaged by fire in 1098.
Older still are the neolithic 5000-year-old passage tombs at Newgrange, Knowth and Dowth but tours to all three places were booked out weeks in advance and inclement weather meant I did not fancy a long walk in the rain just to see the Bru Na Boinne visitors centre. However I did walk 5km along the Boyne Greenway riverside path. The river’s name comes from the proto-Celtic “bouwinda” meaning a white cow and was associated with the goddess Boann. Rare plants grow in the riparian area including Marsh orchid, cowbane and frogbit. I also kept my eyes peeled for otters but did not see any.
Past the cable-stayed Mary McAleese Boyne Valley motorway bridge is the entrance to the Battle of the Boyne Visitor’s Centre. The Battle of the Boyce was fought over a wide area west of Drogheda in July 1690. Here the forces forces of King James II and King William III met in a proxy battle for the throne of England which remains feted in Northern Irish Protestant tradition. A battle cannon lines the entrance to the site.
I intended to check out the visitors centre but being a Saturday, the site also hosted the Oldbridge Parkrun which tramped 5km cross country through the battlefield. The rain did not put me off and after running the tricky course in 25.39 I posed for a wet selfie in front of Oldbridge House, home of the visitors centre.
After drying off, I went up to the big house. Oldbridge House was built half a century after the famous battle. In 1729 John Coddington purchased Oldbridge Estate from the 5th Earl of Drogheda and he or his nephew Dixie Coddington built the house on a bend on the river in the 1740s, reputedly designed by Dublin architect George Darley. The Coddingtons lived here employing many locals in the house and gardens. In the 1970s a series of raids on the house forced the family to leave. They sold the house and estate to the state in 2000 which restored it as a museum.
The House is surrounded by beautiful gardens including the eight-sided Octagon Garden which contained orchards, the kitchen garden and Coddington’s market garden. In the early 20th century the Coddingtons built heated glasshouses and established a thriving market-garden business serving Drogheda and Dublin.
After enjoying the gardens I paid €5 to tour the Battle of the Boyne visitor centre in the ground floor of the house. The battle was enormous. William had 36,000 men and James had 25,000 – the largest number of troops ever deployed on an Irish battlefield. The consequences were also enormous. At stake were the British throne, French dominance of Europe and religious power in Ireland. William had English, Scottish, Dutch, Danish and Huguenot troops while James mainly relied on Irish Catholics, reinforced by 6500 troops sent by French King Louis XIV. William had deposed his father-in-law James in the Glorious Revolution and arrived at Kinsale in 1689. Arriving south of the Boyne on June 28, 1690 (according to the Julian calendar then still in use in Britain and Ireland) he decided to “hazard a battle” against the Williamites camped north of the river. Depicted are two Jacobite musketmen.
William planned a pincer movement and sent 10,000 men west towards Slane which drew the bulk of the Jacobites upstream in response, including James’s best French troops. However marshy land prevented either side from engaging. That left 6000 Jacobites at Oldbridge to confront 26,000 Williamites. William crossed at Drybridge with 3500 mounted troops and on July 1 (Julian calendar) the fighting took place south of the river, as the vastly outnumbered Jacobites desperately defended their position against the advancing Williamites. Jan Wyck painted this “Battle of the Boyne” in 1693.
Although William’s flanking movement was a failure, the weight of numbers against raw Irish recruits told at Oldbridge. The superior firepower of William’s elite Dutch Blue Guards drove back Jacobite foot soldiers until pinned down by Jacobite cavalry. When Williamite cavalry crossed the river the game was up and James’s forces retreated across the River Nanny towards Duleek, leaving 2000 dead on the field.
Though the Jacobites escaped mostly intact, James was demoralised and fled towards Waterford, and exile in France. His army was defeated at Aughrim, ensuring Protestant domination of Ireland, with penal laws passed against Catholics in the following years. The Battle of the Boyne became an occasion for Northern Irish Loyalist celebration every July 12 (the day after the battle according to the Gregorian calendar). In 2007 Irish Taoiseach Bertie Ahern welcomed newly appointed Northern Irish first minister Ian Paisley where he presented him with a Jacobite cavalry musket from the battle.
Afterwards I walked back to Drogheda and went up to Millmount Tower. Millmount is a martello tower on the south bank of the river and hosts Drogheda’s museum. The mound is reputedly 3000 years old and supposedly hosts the body of Celtic poet Amegin. De Lacy built a defensive Motte and Bailey here, overlooking the mouth of the Boyne. During Oliver Cromwell’s attack on Drogheda on September 11, 1649 over 2000 men were killed at Millmount. Later it served as an army barracks and the Martello Tower was built during the Napoleonic War in 1808. The tower was badly damaged in the Irish Civil War in 1922 and was restored in 2000.
St Laurence’s Gate is on the east side of town, north of the river. Despite the name, it is a barbican not a gateway and defended the now destroyed entrance gate. It is regarded as one of the finest of its kind in Europe and consists of two lofty circular towers, connected by a wall with an archway. The name is derived from St Laurence friary outside the gate.
Like Oldbridge House, the Tholsel was designed by George Darley in the 1760s. It was a bank branch for a century before becoming Drogheda’s tourist office which remains open while restoration work continues. Tholsels were municipal and administrative buildings used to collect tolls and taxes and to administer trade in Irish towns. There are other notable tholsels in Kilkenny and Clonmel.
The 14th century Magdalene Tower occupies the highest part of Drogheda north of the river. The belfry tower is all that remains of an extensive Dominican friary built in 1224. Above a Gothic arch are two storeys connected by a spiral staircase. Henry VIII dissoved the monastery and the tower battlements were badly damaged during Cromwell’s siege of 1649.
St Peter’s Catholic church dominates the Drogheda landscape from the viewpoint of Millmount. The French Gothic revival church was built in the 1880s on West St, now the town’s main shopping street. The church has a tall west gable, rose window and contains the national shrine of St. Oliver Plunkett, the 17th century Catholic archbishop of Armagh. Plunkett went into hiding after the fictitious English Popish Plot in 1678, but was arrested, accused of plotting a French invasion. He was found guilty of high treason in June 1681 “for promoting the Roman faith,” condemned to death and was hanged, drawn and quartered at Tyburn. He was canonised in 1975, the first Irish saint in 700 years and his head was returned to Drogheda where it remains on display at St Peter’s.
Weather apart. I enjoyed my time in De Lacy’s town, Cromwell or no Cromwell. Drogheda has a gritty energy with roots to Ireland’s deep past yet with eyes firmly on the future. With a growing and diverse population, It remains Ireland’s largest town in the crucial corridor between the island’s largest cities of Dublin and Belfast.
Woolly Days 