School: Cuan an Bhainigh (Bannow)

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   “The last field to the right as you go down to the Old Quay is called the Rope Walk field.”

   

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   Quays. Colfers of the Mill (Barriestown) had a fine ship which used to come over the bar with coal but they would discharge into lighters at "the Hurl" which would take about twenty tons up to Boyd's or Kings Quay.
   A coal yard was kept for years at the Mine Road.
   Mr Cowman always got a vessel of coal, generally two to three hundred tons into St Kieran's Quay on the far side of the Bay near Saltmills. She would come from Cardiff or one of the Welsh ports - a vessel he'd charter. She would have to get over "The Bar" at the highest point of the Spring tides. She'd time her passage for this but often she might have to stand by in Ingard Bay over, for a day or maybe a night. John Roche of the Island would pilot her in and he'd take soundings on the Bar before going on her.
   The bar is always shifting. Once a ship got stuck in it and they had to throw off tons and tons of the coal to get her off. The coal was washing in for years after it and was splendid firing - the sea water makes it hard to light but very lasting. Lighters would take the coal up the channel and round under Clonmines by Ballylannon to the Coal Yard beside Fardys at Wellingtonbridge.
   It was heavy work to use a twenty foot pole on a lighter carrying from fifteen to twenty tons of coal. These lighters were used even after the

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   Transcribed by a member of our volunteer transcription project.

   History Edit

   Language

   English

   Informant

   Michael Brown

   Gender

   Male

   Address

   Bannow Moor, Co. Wexford