Blue Plaques (original) (raw)

Waterford Civic Trust has installed over sixty Blue Plaques throughout the city and county to commemorate links between a particular location, a famous person or event. Waterford has a rich and diverse heritage which can be viewed through the blue plaques, individually or by following all or part of the Blue Plaque Trail. New blue plaques to be erected this year to Thomas Mackesy and Richard Ryland.

If you have a suggestion regarding a person, event or location that you think should be commemorated, please email us.

Mailpacket Steamers

1835 - 1966

Adelphi Quay

Mailpacket Steamers

Mail Packet Steamers carrying letters and passengers plied between Milford in Wales and Waterford Harbour for several hundred years. In 1823 the service was taken over by the Post Office and the following year steam replaced sail on the Milford / Waterford route, reducing the crossing time to nine hours.

In the early years the mail packets stopped at Dunmore East with passengers and mail , then transferred to Waterford by coach. In 1835 however, the service was extended to Waterford city, berthing at Adelphi Quay. In 1872 the Great Western Railway took over the running of the mail packet service , and in 1906 the Milford terminal was closed with the Waterford steamers berthing at Fishguard. In 1934 the Great Western, the last of the Waterford-Fishguard mail packet steamers , went into service carrying passengers, mail and cargo including live cattle. In 1959 the passenger service was discontinued, and in 1966 the service finally ended

Peter O'Connor, Olympian

1872 - 1957

23 O'Connell Street

Peter O'Connor

Peter O'Connor was born in 1872 and grew up in Waterford. With a life-long interest in sport and especially athletics, he joined the GAA in 1896. His first world record, in the long jump was in 1901 and O’Connor was reigning British long jump champion until 1906. In the 1906 Olympic Games in Athens Peter O’Connor won a silver and a gold medal.

Prior to independence Irish athletes took part in the games as part of the British team and during the medal ceremony O’Connor brandished a green flag to emphasise his Irish nationality. He remained involved in athletics all his life. He was a founder member and first Vice-President of the Waterford Athletic Club, and attended later Olympics both as judge and spectator. He practiced as a solicitor in Waterford and died in Waterford in 1959.

Waterford Steamship Company

1826 - 1912

The Tower Hotel, The Mall

Waterford Steamship Company

In 1817 gas lights were introduced along the Quay and Waterford citizens saw their first steamship, Princess Charlotte, paddling up the Suir. Nine years later (1826) a local group of businessmen, with their Bristol counterparts, set up the Waterford and Bristol Steam Navigation Company. The company was a huge success carrying passengers, goods and cattle between Waterford and Bristol. John Malcomson’s signature appears on the deed of settlement for a wooden paddle steamer Water Witch built in 1883 at Birkenhead for the company. It was claimed at the time she was ‘perhaps the fastest vessel that ever floated’. His tenure as trustee of the Waterford and Bristol Steam Navigation Company was the nursery and breeding ground that spawned the era of Malcomson’s as ship-owners.

Neptune Shipyard

1843 - 1882

Waterford Marina Hotel, Canada St

Neptune Shipyard

In 1843 the Neptune Ironworks opened at Park Road as a repair yard for the growing fleet of ships of the Malcolmson family. A Quaker family, the Malcolmsons were major industrialists in the area and had established their cotton factory in Portlaw in the 1820s. At the end of 1846 the first steamer built in the Neptune yard was launched, the SS Neptune.

The shipbuilding business continued to develop especially under the management of John Horn from 1849-70 and employing over 1,000 men locally. In total forty steamers were built at the Neptune yard including five trans-Atlantic liners for the Malcolmson London, Le Havre and New York line, the SS Cella (1862), SS Iowa (1863), SS Cordova (1864), SS William Penn, and SS Indiana. From the 1870s however, the concern was in serious decline, especially after the bankruptcy of the Malcolmson brothers and when the last ship to be built in the yard was completed in 1882 the workforce was reduced to thirty-two men.

King Richard II - Landed Here

1394

123 The Quay

Richard II

Richard II was born at the Abbey of St. Andrew in Bordeaux on 6 January 1367. He was the son of Edward the Black Prince who died in 1376 and grandson of Edward III. When his grandfather died in 1377 Richard was crowned king at the age of ten.

In 1394 Richard used Waterford as a bridgehead for a major military expedition to Ireland in an attempt to pacify the McMurroughs of Wicklow. He arrived in Waterford with a fleet of over 500 ships and although he enjoyed some success he was not able to pacify the country in the long-term. He came back to Waterford in 1399 but shortly after his arrival he learned that his exiled cousin Henry Bolingbroke had landed in England. He returned to England but was deposed by Bolingbroke who was ultimately crowned Henry IV. Richard died, probably murdered in 1400.

John Horn - Shipbuilder

1814 - 1895

Canada Street

John Horn

John Horn was born in 1814 in Scotland and began his career in shipbuilding on the Clyde as an apprentice in 1826. He was trained by the famous engineer Robert Napier who was known as the father of iron-ship building. In 1849 he was appointed manager of the Neptune shipyard in Waterford, a position which he held until 1870. Under Horn’s stewardship the Neptune yard prospered, and in its heyday built some of the largest ships in Ireland in those years, including the SS William Penn.

Waterford - Newfoundland

1670 - 1810

Bailey's New Street

Waterford-Newfoundland

Trade between Waterford and Newfoundland was of prime importance in the development of the city in the eighteenth century. By 1770 this route absorbed between 10% and 15% of the city’s exports. Waterford merchants provisioned English ships sailing from Bristol and the West Country ports to Newfoundland for the fishing season, and Waterford people migrated there also in search of employment.

Thousands from Waterford and the south east travelled to fish the Grand Banks from the second half of the eighteenth century. In time many of those who worked on the fisheries became permanent settlers, and by the beginning of the nineteenth century Newfoundland was referred to as ‘merely Waterford parted by the sea.’

Wolfe Tone Club - 1st flying of Tricolour

1848

33 The Mall

Wolf Tone Club

Thomas Francis Meagher was born in Waterford, son of the first Catholic mayor of Waterford for over 200 years. From 1843 he immersed himself in Nationalist politics initially supporting Daniel O’Connell’s Repeal Movement.

By 1846 however, he broke with O’Connell and together with a number of the younger members of the movement (the Young Irelanders) was instrumental in the formation of the Irish Confederation, offering a more radical alternative to O’Connell’s conservatism. In March 1848 Meagher was part of the delegation which travelled to Paris carrying a message of goodwill to the new French government following the revolution there and the establishment of the Second Republic.

On his return to Ireland he brought with him the tricolour flag of green, white and orange – no doubt influenced by the revolutionary French red white and blue tricolour. This flag, which ultimately became the national flag of Ireland was first flown publicly at the Wolfe Tone Club, 33 the Mall in Waterford on 7 March, 1848.

CTI (Central Technical Institute)

1906

Parnell Street

CTI (Central Technical Institute)

In 1906 the Central Technical Institute opened on the Mall in Waterford. It was established under the provisions of the Agricultural and Technical Education (Ireland) Act of 1899, perhaps one of the most significant pieces of legislation dealing with the provision of education in Ireland since the establishment of the National Schools in 1831.

The CTI was administered by a local Committee for Technical Instruction and its first chairman was the Catholic bishop of the diocese, Dr. Sheehan – who was also the founder of the Waterford and South- East of Ireland Archaeological Society in 1894. It was mainly due to the vision and commitment of Bishop Sheehan that the early problems of finance especially were overcome.

For over a century the CTI has made a lasting contribution to the educational, social, and cultural life of the city.

Br. Edmond Ignatius Rice

1762 - 1844

Arundle Square

Brother Edmund Ignatius Rice

Edmund Rice was born to Robert Rice and Margaret Rice (née Tierney) in Callan County Kilkenny in 1762. As a young man, Rice spent two years at a school in Kilkenny and in 1779 he moved to Waterford where his uncle Michael Rice was a successful merchant. Following his uncle’s death, he inherited the business and in 1787 married Mary Elliot. Mary died in 1779 following two years of marriage and Edmund was left to care for their infant daughter, also named Mary.

A devout Catholic, Edmund Rice established a school in New Street, Waterford in 1802 to teach poor Catholic boys, along the lines of a similar school established to teach poor girls by the Presentation order in 1798. He convinced other men to join him and in 1808 Edmund Rice and his followers took religious vows as a community, thus laying the foundation of the Presentation and Christian Brothers.

Turgesius Tower

1000 A.D.

The Quay

Turgesius Tower

The name Turgesius Tower was first used by the historian Charles Smith in 1746 and was probably located roughly where the AIB Bank stands at the intersection of Barronstrand Street and the Quay. In all probability this is the tower which is referred to in the minutes of Waterford Corporation in 1700 when Joseph Ivie was authorised ‘to pull downe the castle at the end of the Key levell with the towne wall’. In the Ryland map (1673) the tower on this site appears as a battlemented structure of three floors, while Philips (1685) represents it as a rectangular tower.

St Patrick's Gate

15th Century

Patrick's Street

St. Patrick’s Gate

Also known as St. Patrick’s Fort it was situated by St. Patrick’s Gate on the site of the present Garda Station. The earliest reference to a fort on this site dates to 1590 when it was reported that the military engineer Edmund Yorke had started to build one. Yorke had been sent to Waterford to help strengthen the city’s defences against a possible Spanish attack.

A map of the western walls of the city by Yorke is the earliest map of Waterford and is on display in Waterford Museum of Treasures. In 1615 it was reported that soldiers stationed in the fort had taken the timbers of the nearby St. Patrick’s Church for firewood. In 1625 Captain Nicholas Pynnar and Sir Thomas Botheram were appointed to build new citadels at Waterford, Cork and Galway and by 1626 Pynnar reported that the citadel at Waterford was almost complete. It had accommodation for 120 men and in the course of construction Captain Pynnar had incorporated three existing towers on the city walls into it. Sections of the citadel still survive, in particular the north bastion and the north-west corner fronting on King’s Terrace is 3 metres high

Stephen De Fullburn
(Bishop of Waterford)

1274 -1286

Corner Bailey's New St &
Cathedral Sq (Deanery)

Stephen de Fulburn

He was born in Fulburn in Cambridge and was created Bishop of Waterford in 1274 as well as Treasurer of Ireland and Justiciar from 1281 until his death in 1288. It was during these years that the Waterford mint was in operation and he is also credited with the construction of the thirteenth-century deanery under croft.

Domicians (Blackfriary Abbey)

1245

Conduit Lane

Geoffrey of Waterford

Situated on Conduit Lane, the Dominican priory of St. Saviour was established in the early thirteenth century within the Anglo-Norman defences of the city. During the reign of Henry III in 1235 the citizens of Waterford were granted permission ‘to build an edifice for the use of the Friars Preachers in a void place within the walls of their city in which in ancient times there was an old tower’.

During the thirteenth century a Waterford Dominican, Geoffrey of Waterford became famous as a scholar, fluent in Latin, Greek and Arabic and among other works translated the Physiognomica and De Regimine Principum of Aristotle from the original Greek. He died in Paris in 1300. Together with the other monasteries the Dominican priory was suppressed in 1541 by Henry VIII.

Colbeck Gate

13th Century

Colbeck Street

Colbeck Gate

Also known as the ‘chamber of green cloth’ it was located at the junction of Colbeck Street and the Mall. The earliest reference to this gate dates from an inquisition of 1224. However, as this gate gave access to St. Catherine’s Abbey which was founded before 1200 and which stood on the site of the present court house, it may be of an earlier date.

The 1224 inquisition also refers to St. Katherine’s Gate – which may have been an alternative name for this gate. In the seventeenth century the gate was used as a prison, private residence and later as an arms store. In 1680 for example it was ordered that ‘the ammunition belonging to the city to be lodged in the garret of Colbeck castle, and that two doors and locks and keys be provided’. In 1696 Thomas Christmas was given permission to alter the front of Colbeck’s castle to make the passage higher. The gate was finally demolished in the early eighteenth century.

William Vincent Wallace
- Composer

1812 - 1865

Colbeck Street / Lady Lane

William Vincent Wallace

Wallace was born at Colbeck Street in Waterford in 1812. His father was a regimental bandmaster and Wallace learned to play several instruments as a boy. He was the organist at Thurles Catholic cathedral and also taught piano at the Ursuline Convent in Waterford. In the 1830s he toured Australia and opened a music school in Sydney in 1836.

In 1845 he returned to Britain and in November that year his opera Maritana opened in Drury Lane Treated to great success. Maritana was followed by Matilda of Hungary (1847), Lurline (1860), The Amber Witch (1861), Love's Triumph (1862) and The Desert Flower (1863). He also published a number of compositions for piano. In 1850, Wallace became an American citizen after a marriage in New York with Helen Stoepel, a pianist. He died in France in 1865.

Citadel

16th Century

Stoney Steps
(Back of Garda Station)

The Citadel

Bastion Tower

16th Century

John Street

Bastion Tower

Situated near John’s Bridge and John’s Gate which was demolished in the late eighteenth century, this tower projected from the city and was built out into the river which was much wider during the medieval period. The bastion was supported by a number of arches through which the river flowed. The top of the arches are still to be seen at ground level.

William Hobson - First
Governor of New Zealand

1793 - 1842

Lombard Street

William Hobson

William Hobson was born in Waterford the son of Samuel Hobson in 1793. He joined the Royal Navy in 1803, serving during the Napoleonic wars and was later involved in the suppression of piracy in the Caribbean. He was promoted Commander in 1824, going on to serve in the Pacific and Indian Oceans.

In 1837 he sailed to New Zealand in response to a request for help from James Busby the British Resident, who felt threatened by wars between Maori tribes. In 1840 William Hobson returned to New Zealand as its first Governor but died shortly after his arrival, on 10 September 1842 and is buried in the Symonds Street Cemetery in Auckland.

First Garage in Ireland

1900

Catherine Street

William F Peare

In 1900 Ireland’s first garage was opened in Catherine Street by William F. Peare in partnership with Alderman Sir William Goff who bought the very first car sold by the garage, a French De Dion Buton and has the distinction of being Ireland’s first car owner.

In 1901 Peare began assembling motorized tricycles – the beginnings of Ireland’s motor manufacturing industry. During World War I Peare served as a Captain in the British army and the company went into decline and was forced into liquidation in 1917. However, that same year the business was taken over by John Kelly, a local business man and continued to operate from the Catherine Street site until the business moved to the Cork Road.

John Collyn (Dean)

1466

High Street

John Collyn

John Collyn was dean of Waterford in the latter half of the fifteenth century. He founded a Chantry Chapel, St. Saviour’s and a hostel near the cathedral for poor men of the city known as the Good Men’s House.

This hostel was supported from the rents of property given to Collyn by some of the leading citizens of the city, including his great friend James Rice, eleven-times mayor of the city who granted Collyn ‘6 houses and gardens, 3 shops, 2¼ gardens, rents to the value of 30s and other tenements of unspecified value’. One of the properties mentioned was on the site of the present Deanery Building, beneath which is an extensive undercroft.

The importance of Rice’s bequest was acknowledged in the rules of this alms house, as the inmates were required to rise in their beds three times a night to pray for John Collyn, James Rice and his wife Catherine Brown.

John Roberts - Architect

1714 - 1796

Cathedral Square

John Roberts

John Roberts was born in Waterford in 1712, grandson of Thomas Roberts of Wales who settled in the city about 1680. John’s father was a carpenter and builder who built the new goal in Waterford in 1727 as well as supplying water to the Quay in 1724.

As a young man John Roberts studied in London. Among the buildings he designed in Waterford are the two cathedrals, the present City Hall, the old Leper Hospital on John’s Hill and the Chamber of Commerce building in George’s Street originally built as a town house for the Morris family.

Presentation Sisters -
First School In Waterford

1798

Jenkins Lane

Presentation Sisters

The Presentation sisters arrived in Waterford in 1798. Originally the order had been invited to open a school in the city for the education of poor Catholic girls in 1795 by the then bishop Dr. William Egan. However due to lack of numbers this was not possible and therefore two women from Waterford, a widow named Margaret Power and her sister Miss Fanning went to Cork to be received into the order with a view to returning to Waterford to establish a school. Their first school was established beside St. Patrick’s Catholic Church and in 1800 the sisters moved to their new convent on Hennessy’s Road.

They remained here until 1848 when they moved to their final destination in the city – the convent on Slievekeale Road which was designed by the famous architect Pugin.

1794 - 1803

Barronstrand Street

Thomas Hussey

Thomas Hussey born at Ballybogan Co. Meath in 1746 and studied for the priesthood at the Irish College at Salamanca in Spain. In 1767 he was appointed as chaplain to the Spanish Embassy in London. Following his return to Ireland Hussey played a key role in the establishment of Maynooth College with government help and was appointed its first president in 1795.

In 1797 he was consecrated Bishop of Waterford and Lismore. He lived for a time in an imposing house on Gracedieu Road. During his time as bishop he encouraged the establishment of Catholic schools in the diocese by the Presentation Sisters and also encouraged Edmund Rice in educating poor boys. He died in 1803 and is buried within the grounds of the Catholic Cathedral.

Tadhg O Suilleabhain

1715 - 1795

Barronstrand Street

Tadhg O Suilleabhain

Tadgh Gaeleach OSúilleabháin, poet, died in the doorway of the newly constructed Catholic Cathedral in April 1795. He was a friend of Edmund Rice and his poems were often sung as hymns throughout the Munster province. He is buried in Ballylaneen, Co. Waterford and his headstone bears an epitaph in Latin written by a fellow Irish poet.

Links to more information More information is available from Waterford History
‍
‍Information in Gaeilge on his life and works
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‍Wikipedia information
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‍Extract of information on Tadgh Gaelech O’Suilleabháin 1715-1795

Tadgh Gaelach O’Suilleabháin was born in Meenteenowen in the parish of Tournafulla, Limerick. He was possibly educated locally but it is also suggested that he received further education abroad as he spoke Latin, Greek and Hebrew.

At the age of 25 he moved to Cork where he was a hedge school master. Sometime after 1760 he went to live in the Dungarven area where he roamed the countryside as a “spailpín”. Here he did a considerable amount of writing which earned him quite a reputation. His education and knowledge earned him great respect and he worked for many farmers and taught their children.

Tadgh was also a great musician playing both the harp and Uileann pipes. He is best remembered for his religious poems including “Gile mo chroí” and “Duan chroí Iosa” which was arranged by Sean O Riada and is sung regularly at Irish vernacular Masses.

He ended his days in Waterford and it is said that he was forever praying for a “bás Naofa, Lá Naofa, in áit Naofa”. He died on a Sunday in Waterford Cathedral after receiving Holy Communion and is buried in Ballylaneen cemetery. The first edition of his poetry was published in Limerick after his death.

William Hobson - Founder
of City of Auckland

Patrick Street

William Hobson

Whites Shipyard

Ferrybank

White’s Shipyard

Thomas White, a Quaker businessman, came to Waterford in 1775 and opened a grocery business in King Street, now O’Connell Street. His son William developed a rope walk in 1816 and in 1818 he opened his shipyard in Ferrybank, manufacturing wooden sailing ships. White’s first ship the Erin was launched in 1820. It is a testament to the workmanship at White’s that this ship was still in service in 1842. White’s shipyard also built the largest and fastest ship ever built in Waterford, the Merrie England.

Clyde Shipping Company

1856 - 1986

Keyser Street

Clyde Shipping Company

Established in the 1820s, the Clyde Shipping Co. was the first steam ship company ever established. In 1859 the Clyde Shipping Co. started a weekly service from Glasgow to Waterford and Cork with two ships, the Killarney and the Vivandiere. In 1870 the Clyde company co-operated with the Malcolmsons on cross-channel routes. In 1912 it took over the Waterford Steamship Co. and its three ships, the Clodagh, the Reginald and the Dunbrody which was renamed the Arklow.

During World War I two Clyde ships, the Formby and the Coninbeg were torpedoed by German U Boats. In the inter-war period Clyde Shipping continued to operate a cross channel service from Waterford carrying passengers, cargo and live cattle.

In the post-war years the cross-channel trade from Waterford entered a period of serious decline, and the SS Rockabill was the last of the Clyde steamers to operate from Waterford.

Money Exchange

1650

Exchange Street

Money Exchange

Waterford was transformed during the eighteenth century with the erection of many fine public buildings. The Exchange was built on the Quay between 1710 and 1714 on the site of the old market. It was a magnificent building and in 1746 the historian Charles Smith described it as ‘a neat light building supported by pillars of hewn stone of the Tuscan order… the roof is an Italian hipped roof with a beautiful octagonal cupula and a dome on top.’ The site of the old Exchange is now occupied by the Ulster Bank.

John Condon - Boy Soldier

K.I.A. 1915

Wellington Street

Boy Soldier - John Condon

It is estimated that in excess of 400,000 Irishmen fought in the Great War. This figure includes those already serving in the regular British army in 1914 and those who volunteered for service in the new Irish Divisions formed following the outbreak of the war, the 10th, 10th and 36th, as well as Irishmen serving in the armed forces of other Commonwealth nations. Roughly 4,800 men from Waterford city and county served during the war and over 700 were killed. Among those was John Condon, the ‘Boy Soldier’ of the Royal Irish Regiment who was killed in action on the 24 May 1915. Condon’s grave in Flanders is one of the most visited of all the war graves and is regarded by many as a fitting symbol for the futility of war.

Francis Hearne - United Irishman

Hanged 1799

The Quay / Bridge Street

Francis Hearne

From a distinguished clerical family Francis Hearne was hanged on Waterford Bridge in 1799 for United Irish activities. Three of his uncles were Catholic priests. His uncle Thomas was the dean of the diocese and another uncle Francis was rector of the Irish College at Louvain in Belgium and was a noted linguist, fluent in English, Irish, Latin, French, Italian, Spanish, German, Arabic and Russian as well as Flemish.

The younger Francis had studied for the priesthood at Maynooth but had been expelled for his political activities. Following the 1798 rebellion Hearne was arrested and charged treasonable activities and found guilty. Despite the best efforts of his uncles he was executed on 21 October 1799.

Raymond Chandler

1888 - 1959

John's Hill

Raymond Chandler

He was born in Chicago Illinois in 1888 but moved to Britain in 1895 with his Waterford-born mother, Florence Thornton after they were abandoned by his father, an alcoholic civil engineer for an American railway company. Florence’s father was a prominent solicitor in Waterford with offices in Cathedral Square.

The family home was ‘The Grange’, John’s Hill, where young Raymond spent some years and came for summer holidays. In 1900 Chandler attended Dulwick College, London, later working as a civil servant and journalist. In 1912 he returned to America, settling in Los Angeles. He served in the Canadian forces during World War I. Chandler is probably best known as the creator of the fictional private detective Philip Marlowe in a series of novels including The Big Sleep and The Long Goodbye. Raymond Chandler died in 1959.

George & William Penrose
- Glass Manufacturers

Glass House Lane

George and William Penrose

The doubling of duty on English-manufactured glass in 1777 as well as the Free Trade Act of 1780 removing the duty on Irish glass provided the impetus for the development of glass manufacturing in Ireland.

In 1783 the brothers George and William Penrose established their glass manufactory in Waterford. From a distinguished Quaker family, the Penrose brothers first began making glass near John’s Bridge. The finest and oldest piece of old Waterford glass in existence is a chandelier now hanging in the Council Chamber of City Hall. It was originally made for Dublin Castle in 1787 and was returned to Waterford in the 1830s.

Annie Brophy - Photographer

1899 - 1986

Barker Street

Annie Brophy

Annie Brophy was born in Johnstown in Waterford and worked for practically her entire adult life, from 1922 to 1978, as a professional photographer in her native city. She initially trained with Hughes Photographers, Manor Street before setting up her own business in her house at 9 Barker Street.

She was the first female professional photographer in Waterford and one of the first in Ireland. Although most of the images in the collection are family and individual portraits there are also many views of buildings and streets. Her photographic record is an invaluable source for the study of the changing streetscape of Waterford. Annie also photographed some of the important local events in the history of Waterford. Living in Barker Street she photographed the aftermath Gaol Wall Disaster in 1943.

Her photographic collection, amounting to over 60,000 negatives and prints was acquired by Waterford City Council, and is now housed in Waterford City Archives.

Richard Mulcahy - Politician

1886 - 1971

Manor Street

Richard Mulcahy

Richard Mulcahy was born in Manor Street, Waterford in 1886. He was educated at Mount Sion Christian Brothers School and later in Thurles, County Tipperary, where his father was the postmaster. Mulcahy joined the Irish Volunteers in 1913 and was also a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood and the Gaelic League.

During the 1916 Rising he took part in the attack on Ashbourne Royal Irish Constabulary barracks – the only successful engagement of the rebellion. Arrested after the rising he was interned. Upon his release he became Commandant of the Dublin Brigade of the IRA. In March 1918 he was appointed Chief of Staff, a position he held until January 1922. Mulcahy supported the Anglo-Irish Treaty of 1921, and became Minister for Defence in the Provisional Government. Following the death of Michael Collins during the Civil War, in August 1922, Mulcahy took over as Chief of Staff of the National Army. In March 1924 he was forced to resign from cabinet during the ‘Army Mutiny’, although he returned to government the following year as Minister for the Gaeltacht.

After the resignation of William T. Cosgrave in 1944, Richard Mulcahy became leader of Fine Gael. Following the 1948 general election, the first inter-party government in the history of the Irish state came to power. Because of lingering bitterness over the Civil War, Mulcahy was not acceptable to his coalition partners as Taoiseach, and therefore he stepped aside in favour of John A. Costello. Mulcahy went on to serve as Minister for Education in the new government. He retired from active politics in 1965 and died in 1971

John J Hearne

1893 - 1969

8 William Street

John J. Hearne

John J. Hearne was born on 4 November 1893. His father was a Waterford boot manufacturer and mayor of the city on two occasions, in 1902 and 1903. He was educated at Waterpark College, Waterford, and at University College Dublin.

Hearne joined the Department of External Affairs in 1929 as legal adviser and played a prominent role as a member of Ireland’s delegation to the assemblies of the League of Nations and Commonwealth conferences of which Ireland was then a member. However, Hearne’s lasting legacy to the Irish state is as one of the drafters of the 1937 Constitution. In January 1935 he was appointed to a committee of three senior civil servants by de Valera to prepare the new constitution.

He was later appointed High Commissioner to Canada and in 1950 was appointed Ambassador to the United States, where he remained for the next ten years, retiring on the 4 November 1960 – four days before the election of John F. Kennedy as president. Hearne then served as a legislative consultant to the governments of Nigeria and Ghana, as these former British colonies emerged as independent nations during the 1960s. He died in Dublin in 1969.

Sean Dunne - Author

1956 - 1995

321 John's Park

Seán Dunne

Seán Dunne was born in 1956 in Waterford City. He attended Mount Sion primary and secondary schools in the city where he started writing for the school magazine before going to University College Cork. After graduating from university he settled in Cork where he worked in the city library and wrote for the Cork Examiner.

He published three collections of poetry, Against the Storm (1985), The Sheltered Nest (1992) and Time and the Island (1996), as well as a memoir of growing up in Waterford in the 1960s, In My Father's House (2000). Sean died in 1995 aged thirty-nine. He is remembered each year in the Seán Dunne Writers' Festival – a fitting tribute to Waterford’s most creative literary sons.

Thomas Francis Meagher

Arrested 1848

19 The Mall

Thomas Francis Meagher

Thomas Francis Meagher was born in Waterford, on the 3rd August 1823, son of the first Catholic mayor of Waterford for over 200 years. Meagher became a revolutionary as a young man, fighting for Ireland's independence from British rule. He was known as "Meagher of the Sword" due to his fiery revolutionary speeches urging war to achieve the goal of independence.

In 1848 the British charged Meagher, and several colleagues, with high treason and condemned them to death. The following year his sentence was commuted and he was banished for life to Tasmania. He escaped in 1852 and made his way to New York City. There he studied law, worked as a journalist, and travelled to present lectures on the Irish cause.

At the beginning of the American Civil War, he joined the U.S. Army and rose to the rank of brigadier general. He was most notable for recruiting and leading the Irish Brigade and encouraging Irish support for the cause of the Union. He was married twice and had one surviving son, from his first wife. Following the Civil War, Meagher was appointed acting governor of the Montana Territory. In 1867, Meagher drowned in the swift-running Missouri River after falling from a steamboat at Fort Benton.

John Keane - Hurler

1917 - 1975

80 Barrack Street

John Keane

John Keane (1917-1975) was one of the greatest hurlers in the history of the game. He excelled at hurling during his school days at Waterford’s Mount Sion CBS, and rapidly made his mark as a great player for the club, and soon after, for the county, where he played at Minor level and won Munster and All Ireland honours in 1934. He was Waterford’s and Mount Sion’s accepted leader on the field for virtually all his long career.

A star hurler who played centre-back for the Waterford Senior team, he was a club minor at thirteen, an inter-county minor at fifteen and a junior All Ireland medallist at seventeen.

He made his senior debut in the 1934-1935 National Hurling League and went on to play a key part for a Waterford team that made a long overdue breakthrough, winning one All Ireland medal and two Munster medals. He subsequently went on to captain the Waterford Senior team in seven Munster championships. Waterford defeated Cork in the Munster final, and Dublin in the All Ireland, with a score of 6-7 to 4-2, with Keane’s tally of 3-2.

Keane was a Munster Railway Cup hero for all of twelve years and the inspiration of Waterford’s first ever Senior All Ireland victory in 1948. Keane was also a selector and trainer of many successful clubs and county teams. Hurling enthusiasts were saddened and shocked at his untimely death in October 1975.

Teresa Deevy - Playwright

1894 - 1963

Passage Road

Teresa Deevy

Teresa Deevy was born in Waterford in 1894, the youngest child of business man Edward Deevy and his wife Mary. Having attended the Ursuline Convent in the City, Teresa went on to study at University College Dublin. However, her studies in Dublin were curtailed as she developed the hereditary Méniéres disease which eventually rendered her totally deaf. She had transferred to University College Cork as the deafness progressed but eventually moved to London in 1914 to learn lip reading. It was in London that she developed her interest in drama. Although she was totally deaf by now, she would read play scripts before attending the performance and lip read the actors as they performed. When she returned to Waterford in 1919 she was already writing plays and contributing articles and stories to local and national press. In the mid-1920s she began submitting her work to the Abbey Theatre where eventually in 1930 they staged her three-act play, ‘Reapers’. This was followed in 1931 by a one-act play, ‘A Disciple’ and in1932 her award winning play, ‘Temporal Powers’ was produced. ‘The King of Spain's Daughter’ followed in 1935, ‘Katie Roche’ and ‘The Wild Goose’ came in 1936. Her play ‘Wife to James Whelan’ was rejected by the Abbey in 1937. It was an amazing achievement for a woman at that time in Ireland, let alone a profoundly deaf woman, to break through the glass ceiling and become an established nationally recognised playwright. In the late thirties she became interested in writing for the radio and for the next twenty years many of her plays were broadcast on Radio Eireann and BBC Northern Ireland. In 1939 two of her plays were shown on the new BBC Television service. She died in 1963 at the age of 68.

After her death in 1963 her plays were neglected by theatre managers and it seemed that the theatre world had forgotten her, but, in April 1994, the Abbey Theatre revived her play, Katie Roche to critical acclaim and this has led to a slow but steady renaissance. Her canon of plays is now becoming the subject of literary conferences and University theses and in very recent times some of her works have been revived and performed in New York and London. It has also come to the attention of the Deevy family that an increasing number of Irish amateur companies are also applying for the rights to perform her plays.

AWN Pugin - Architect

1812 - 1862

Waterford Health Park,
Slievekeale Road

AWN Pugin

Augustus Welby Pugin, the architect, designer, writer, and theorist who was born in London in 1812 and had an enormous influence upon architecture and design throughout the English-speaking world well into this century. He studied with his father, a French-born architect. Pugin favoured the revival of fourteenth-century gothic style for which he is chiefly remembered.

After his conversion to Roman Catholicism in 1835, Pugin looked towards Ireland with its overwhelmingly Catholic population for commissions to design Catholic churches and religious institutions. From the late 1830s until his early death in 1852, Pugin designed a large number of Irish churches and convents as well as the great seminary at Maynooth and the Waterford Health Park which was a convent, although he only visited the country only about ten times in all and never for longer than twelve days at a time he had a huge influence on the architecture of the Irish landscape.

From the Mayor’s speech at the unveiling:

AWN Pugin died at the relatively young age of 40 from health complications that would be easily treated and cured today. I’m sure it would make him very happy to think that his design plays such a large part in looking after people’s health

Frederick Douglass -
American Abolitionist

City Hall, The Mall

Fredrick Douglass

Fredrick Douglass (1818-1895) is renowned as a nineteenth century equality and anti-slavery campaigner. During his tour of Ireland, Douglass spoke in the Large Room, City Hall, on the evening of Thursday 9th October 1845.

On Monday 7th October 2013 the Mayor of Waterford unveiled a Blue Plaque on the façade of Waterford City Hall to commemorate the visit to Waterford City of Frederick Douglass in October 1845.

Frederick Douglass (1818-1895), was a former slave, abolitionist and human rights activist. He visited Ireland and Britain for an extended lecture tour during 1845-47. During his time in Ireland, he met and befriended Daniel O’Connell (himself a convinced abolitionist), who was to prove to be a great inspiration in his later career.

During his tour of Ireland, Douglass spoke in the Large Room, City hall, on the evening of Thursday the 9th of October 1845. It appears that he arrived in Waterford from Wexford on the 8th of October, and left for Cork that day after his speech. Unfortunately, the details of his speech in Waterford and its reception are scant. However, a local newspaper recorded that the attendance at the meeting was “both numerous and respectable…” and that “the cause he so ably advocates deserves the support of every friend to humanity…”

In later years, Douglass credited his visit to Ireland, and especially his contacts with O’Connell, with broadening his political position from campaigning for the end of slavery to campaigning for freedom for all, equality and an end to poverty – “…the greatest enemy…”. This link between O’Connell and Douglass was explicitly referred to by President Obama in his speech in College Green, Dublin on the 23rd of May 2011 – “…Frederick Douglass, and escaped slave, and our great abolitionist, forged an unlikely friendship right here in Dublin, with your great liberator, Daniel O’Connell. His time here [in Ireland], Frederick Douglass said, defined him not as a colour, but as a man, and it strengthened the non-violent campaign he would return home to wage.

After returning to the US, Douglass subsequently had a long and distinguished career as a writer, speaker, civil rights campaigner, presidential adviser, and diplomat. He died in Washington DC on the 20th of February 1895, and is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery, Rochester, New York; the city which had been his home for twenty-five years.

Douglass is a very highly regarded and respected figure in the United States, frequently appearing on lists of greatest Americans.

A bust of him is to be erected within the US Capitol building.‘A Book on the Black O’Connell’ was published in 2014, and it gives an account of his time in Ireland.

Paddy Coad -
International Soccer Player

1920 - 1992

95 Doyle Street

Paddy Coad

Blue Plaque erected on 27th September 2014 to honour Paddy Coad, Waterford footballer. Waterford Civic Trust, the FAI and Shamrock Rovers unveiled a blue plaque to honour the great footballer, Paddy Coad, on Saturday, 27th September. Paddy Coad (1920-1992) is remembered as an extraordinarily gifted footballer who played for Waterford, Glenavon, Shamrock Rovers and Ireland. Matt Busby said of him “Wish I could have seen him as a boy, what ability” in 1957 when Paddy was 37.

Paddy Coad: - The Greatest League of Ireland player of the 20th Century
‍Terms of Reference: This report will investigate why Paddy Coad is claimed to be the greatest League of Ireland player of the 20th Century. His playing career spanned the period 1937 to 1962 with Waterford United and Shamrock Rovers and also included 11 International Caps.

Method of Procedure: The researcher will use primary and secondary research. Primary research will include meetings with players who played with and against Coad during his career. Secondary research will include official websites such as www.fai.ie, www.shamrockrovers.ie and relative newspaper archives from the local press. It should also be noted that Paddy Coad is the uncle of this researcher and I accept possible bias in this report.

Findings: Paddy Coad was born in 1920 and was sent to De La Salle School, Stephen Street. His first sporting distinction was Table Tennis where he became champion of Munster in the early 1930s. His main sporting love however was soccer and he joined the local junior club Corinthians, based primarily on the Lower Yellow Road area. His exceptional talent was quickly realised by the local League of Ireland team and he played his first game for the 'Blues' in 1937. He moved to the Northern Ireland club Glenavon in the following year but he was there only a short while when WWII broke out and Paddy returned to Waterford to continue his career with the local club. (www.shamrockrovers.ie)

After a couple of seasons with the Blues Coad signed for the famous Dublin club Shamrock Rovers in 1942 and it was with Rovers that he transformed play in the League with his tremendous skills; his passing of the ball and his overall leadership showed other clubs the way football should be played and he was responsible, almost single-handedly, for a general rise in standards. ( www.fai.ie)

Every team tried to match Rovers in the new way forward. At the time nobody could have envisaged the impact that Coad was to have on the Milltown club, he was to win every honour in the game including eleven international caps and he was to captain the Hoops to unprecedented success in the next decade. The Rovers team of this area became known as “Coads Colts” due to number of young players and by the time Rovers won the League title in 1953/54 he had put together what many old supporters believe now to be the best Hoops team ever. ( www.shamrockrovers.ie)

After he was made their coach, in 1949, Rovers became the dominant force in Irish football. Coad was the master-general and it was said of him that he did everything at the club but drive the bus. As a midfield general he was known, primarily, as a maker of goals but he did score 126 League of Ireland goals and 41 FAI Cup goals in his career. As player-manager Shamrock Rovers won the League title on 3 occasions (1954, 1957 and 1959); and were also FAI Cup Winners on 4 occasions (in 1944, 1945, 1948 and 1956). He was selected eleven times for Ireland between 1946 and 1952 scoring 3 goals. He also played in twenty-four representative games (a record) for the League of Ireland, the last in 1955. These Inter-league representative matches were usually played on St. Patricks Day in Dalymount Park, where crowds in excess of 25000 gathered to see their heroes.

Shamrock Rovers entered the European Cup in 1957(the first time an Irish team had done so) and it was in this competition that Coad reserved one of his greatest performances for Rovers. That night he dominated the European cup tie against the famous Busby Babes of Manchester United at Old Trafford. His display that night had to be seen to be believed and it was described as the greatest by an Irish player in England up to that time. And remember - he was 37 years old. Sir Matt Busby said after the game “ What a performance, I just wish I could have seen him as a young boy”. (www.shamrockrovers.ie and Waterford Soccer Monthly)Comments about Coad John Giles:”My schoolboy hero, the player we all wanted to be.Alfie Hale: “A true Football legend”Liam Touhy: “Loved the man, A genius”

Players such as Roy Keane, Kevin Doyle and Noel Hunt have gone on to make careers in England but none had the longevity of Coad in the League of Ireland. Respected figures in the game such as former internationals Peter Fitzgerald, Alfie Hale and John Giles have been involved in League of Ireland Football since the 1940’s and all are of the opinion that no player has come close to the ability that Paddy Coad showed during the height of his career.

Waterford-born Coad won eleven international caps, scored three goals and found fame in the domestic game. He was a gifted striker of the ball as his record of 126 League of Ireland goals and 41 FAI Cup goals proved. His tally of 126 League goals ensures to this day his appearance in the top 10 goal scorers in League of Ireland history while his 41 FAI Cup goals makes him still the record goalscorer in the competitions history. (Source www.fai.ie)
‍
Coad also had the distinction of scoring Ireland's winner in the 3-2 victory over Norway at the Ullevaal Stadium on May 30 1951. What was unique about this occasion was that it was the first time that a substitute had scored for Ireland in an International match. (www.fai.ie)
‍
‍Conclusion: This report found that Paddy Coad is widely accepted as being the greatest player to play in the League of Ireland, choosing not to grace his magnificent skills at the highest level with those who crossed the Irish Sea to further their careers at English clubs but to stay at home and leave his legacy as the greatest League of Ireland player of the 20th Century. is today regarded, not only as the greatest Shamrock Rovers player of all time, but as the greatest League of Ireland player of the 20th century. There are many, in Dublin as well as in Waterford, who will say that there never was anyone as good as Coad. He was a true legend. ( www.shamrockrovers.ie)

Richard Ryland

1788 - 1866

The Mall

Richard H. Ryland

Richard Hopkins Ryland was born on 7th March 1788. He was educated at the Waterford Endowed School and graduated from Trinity College, Dublin. In 1811 he was ordained by Bishop Joseph Stack in Christ Church Cathedral, Waterford. Ryland married Isabella Julia, daughter of Rev. George Louis Fleury, Archdeacon of Waterford. They had eight children, six sons and two daughters.

Ryland was an amateur historian and is best known as the author of The History, Topography and Antiquities of the County and City of Waterford, published in 1824. The book was dedicated to the Duke of Devonshire.

Ryland died on 30th December 1866. He was buried in the cemetery at John's Hill on 3rd January 1867 following a funeral service held in Christ Church Cathedral. A church on the cemetery grounds (featured across) is named after the Rev Ryland in his honour. See our projects section for more on the work we have undertaken.

Thomas Lewis Mackesy

1790 - 1869

No 22, Lady Lane

Dr. Thomas Lewis Mackesy

Thomas L. Mackesy, MD, FRCSI

Thomas Lewis Mackesy who was born in Waterford, and apprenticed to his father (an apothecary), saw a good deal of practice at the Leper Hospital in Waterford. He went on to train in Dublin for the office of assistant-surgeon in the army. He served for seven years in the artillery and was present when the British were repulsed at Guadeloupe.

On his return from service, Mackesy settled down to civil practice. He became a member of the College of Surgeons in England in 1809 and was appointed Surgeon to the Leper and Fanning Hospitals in Waterford. He was Mayor of Waterford 1841-1842, and on his link in the Waterford Mayoral Chain his motto was In Deo Manuque Fides.

Collins Brothers

1914 - 1918

22/23 Philip Street (Balteen)

Collins Brothers

The story behind the Collins Brothers involvement in World War I is one of sacrifice and tragedy. The Collins lived in the Balteen, which is now known as Philip Street. On 12th November, 2016, Waterford Civic Trust unveiled a blue plaque in honour of these Waterfordians.

Six brothers from Waterford City, sons of Agnes and Thomas Collins, went to war. William was the only one to make it home safely. Four of his brothers died in Flanders and at the Somme, while the fifth was reported missing and presumed dead. He was later found badly injured and was repatriated after the war. These brothers were Stephen, Michael, John, Joseph and Patrick.

Dr. Mary Strangman

1872 - 1943

Parliament Street

Dr. Mary Strangman

Dr Mary Somerville Parker Strangman was a doctor, suffragist and elected councillor. Strangman was born on 16 March 1872 at Carriganore, Killotteran, Waterford, the sixth of seven children of Thomas Handcock Strangman and Sarah White Hawkes. She was educated at home with her four brothers and two sisters.

Along with her sister Lucia, Mary became interested in medicine at an early age. In 1891, when she was 19 and Lucia was 21, they both enrolled at the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RCSI) in 1891, receiving their licences in 1896. After training and lecturing in Britain, Mary Strangman became the second woman to earn the fellowship of RCSI in 1902. Establishing a practice in Waterford, Strangman also volunteered at various local women’s charities and published a number of research articles on alcoholism and morphine addiction.

She was an active suffragist and served on the executive committee of the Irishwomen’s Suffrage Federation (1911–1917). As co-founder of the local branch of the Woman’s National Health Association, Strangman worked to combat tuberculosis, the country’s principal killer disease. Seeing the authorities’ poor investment in sanitation, Strangman stood for election on a public health platform and was elected Waterford’s first female councillor in 1912. Retiring from office in 1920, Strangman continued in general practice and as physician at Waterford County and City Infirmary.

She continued to practice medicine almost until her death. She died on 30 January 1943 in her sister’s home in Dún Laoghaire.

Rosamond Jacob

1888 - 1960

South Parade

Rosamond Jacob

Rosamond Jacob was born in South Parade, Waterford. She worked her entire adult life, from 1900 to 1964, as an advocate for women’s rights in her native city and at national and global level. Throughout her life she was passionately interested in the concept of gender equality and feminist consciousness raising. In 1905 she was a member of the “Irish Women’s Citizens and local Government”. She was concerned about the working conditions of all women in industrialised nations. Along with Hanna Sheehy Skefflington she represented Ireland at an Irish “Women’s International League for Peace and Freedom” (WILPF) congress in Prague.

As an interesting aside, Rosamund’s friend Hanna Sheehy Skeffington had been given a copy of Ulysses by the author James Joyce; which she in turn loaned to her friend Rosamund Jacob. In direct relation to this, a quote from one of Rosamund Jacob’s many diaries reads: “Hanna (Sheehy Skeffington) had ‘Ulysses’, a present from Joyce…who took her out to dinner & gave his photo & asked her questions about everyone he knew in Dublin. She lent me Ulysses & I found a lot of interesting & weird & funny stuff in it, but so much plain disgustfulness that I could not read it at meals.”

Along with diary’s and short stories she wrote five books, four of which were published: Callaghan (1920) The Troubled House (1938) The Rebel’s Wife (1957) The Raven’s Glen (1960) Her major achievement and outstanding work was The Rise of the United Irishmen (1937).

Cockle Women

1970

Arundel Lane

Cockle Women

The courageous and hardworking Cockle Woman have finally got the place in history that they deserve with the unveiling of a Blue Plaque, exhibition and a talk dedicated to them.

In a primal need to survive and support their families, women picked cockles on the banks of the river Suir from Passage to Tramore and transported them by ass and cart or on foot to Waterford city for selling. Many of the women were widowed and this was their only source of income.

Coordinator of Waterford Women’s Centre, Breda Murphy is a descendent of two cockle women – her aunt Molly and grandmother Ellie.

As members of the Women’s History Project and through her involvement in a storytelling project in Passage East and Cheekpoint, Breda has a great interest in social history and stories passed down through generations.

“During the story telling nights there were a number of stories told about the cockle women. I recalled the stories my aunt Molly had told me about her mother Ellie.”

Molly spoke of the hardship her mother endured and often felt sad about what she had to go through. Ellie’s husband died under the age of 40 leaving her with four very young children.

“She was already a cockle picker as a single woman. In the 1911 census she had her occupation down as cockle picker. She had a three-month-old baby – Molly – at that stage, which was remarkable at that time because it wasn’t traditional particularly for a married woman to put down her occupation,” Breda said.

Breda felt the cockle women were never recognised as a substantial part of Waterford’s history, and that’s why she proposed that they be awarded the Civic Trust Blue Plaque.

As part of the Women’s Centre Pink Plaque campaign they nominate a deserving woman or women for a Blue Plaque, which is unveiled each year on International Women’s Day. Since the plaque was unveiled on March 8 a few more names of cockle women have been identified. In Passage East there were the three Kelly sisters, Masher (Mary Cleere), Nana (Ellen Robinson) and Maggie Furlong, Katty Dwyer, Janie Organ, Ellie Murphy, Mary Ivory and Elizabeth Hearne. Some of the women’s daughters also picked cockles, including Kitty and Johanna.

The pride for the cockle women is ingrained through the generations. Many have contributed to the project including Maggie Furlong’s grandson John and great-grandson Sean, and Masher’s grandsons James and John. Janie Organ’s grandson and Stasia Ryan’s son Paddy Ryan provided the music at the unveiling ceremony, while Maura Power nee Robinson, granddaughter of Nana Ellen Robinson, Grainne Flanagan, great granddaughter, and Saoirse Flanagan, great great granddaughter of Katty Dwyer, unveiled the blue plaque. All in all, over 40 family members attended the event.

“I’d love to hear if there are any more out there. The story is much bigger than I expected it to be,” Breda said. “Certainly from the numbers of people who came forward it is forming a big part of history.

”An exhibition called ‘Women at Work’ featuring the cockle women, which is the work of Ann Fitzgerald and Andy Kelly, continues in Central Library until March 30. The collection of photographs is being constantly updated with unseen photographs generously provided by the families of the cockle women.

Daly Family

1911 - 1982

5, Arundel Lane

Daly Family

On Wednesday 4th March the Women’s Centre in partnership with Waterford Civic Trust unveiled a Blue Plaque to the Daly Family, Mai, Debbie and their mother Margaret who ran a café for the poor of Waterford, better known as ‘the shop’, at no 5 Arundel Lane. The event was attended by over 100 people. Des Griffin, Chair of the Waterford Civic Trust, was the MC on the day and welcomed the Mayor of Waterford Cllr. John Pratt. The Mayor acknowledged the kindness of the Daly’s in providing a place where the poor of Waterford were treated with compassion and kindness.

Breda Freyne, niece of Mai and Debbie Daly unveiled the plaque and nephew Robert Lanigan spoke on behalf of the Daly family, many generations of whom were in attendance. Robert paid tribute to his aunts and his grandmother’s kindness and generosity and said they would have not wanted the notoriety of the Blue Plaque as they were very humble women. Eleanor Murphy, Women’s Centre History Group, spoke about the history of the Daly Family and gave examples of how these resilient women treated everyone who came to their café equally and without judgement.

Jacobs Brothers

William 1825 - 1902
Robert 1831 - 1861

3, O'Connell Street

Jacobs Brothers

The famous firm of W&R Jacob, biscuit-makers, had its origins in Waterford city in the 19th C. It’s founders the Quaker brothers William and Robert, were the sons of Issac and Anne Jacob who married in 1824 and lived in O’Connell Street. Issac was a baker with premises at Bridge Street. A son, William was born in 1825 and Robert in 1831.

Anna Manahan

1924 - 2016

Lombard Street

Anna Manahan

Anna Manahan, actress, Tony award winner, and Doctor of Letters (D.Litt), was born in Waterford on the 18th of October 1924. Her career of almost sixty years began in the Gaiety Theatre in Dublin, where she worked with many famous names including Micheál MacLiammóir and Hilton Edwards, and thus assured her a place in the Irish theatrical hall of fame from an early age.

This eventually led her before the British television audience from the 1960’s to the 80’s. She was at home on either stage or screen, but in spite of her undoubted success on screens both big and small, Anna was a stage actress first and foremost. A charming, even seductive presence, she was a superb interpreter of the works of many Irish and international authors. She was incapable of retirement. She just kept going on.

She was a child of Waterford – a badge she wore with honour and pride her entire life. She received the freedom of the city in 2002. After a life lived in Dublin and across the vast world of entertainment from the West End to Broadway, she returned to her native city in later years, although she might have agreed that she never left.

Anna Manahan’s Blue Plaque was erected on 3, Lombard Street in January 2016.

John Coghlan

1804- 1874

Coach House, Kilmacthomas

John Coghlan

A Doctor of Famine times was remembered by Waterford Civic Trust earlier this month with a Heritage Blue Plaque unveiled at Coach House Coffee in Kilmacthomas.

The plaque honours Dr. John Coghlan, a distinguished doctor and humanitarian who arrived in Dungarvan in 1832, as a dispensary doctor, transferring to Kilmacthomas on February 1, 1833. He was to serve the community for forty years, winning their deep appreciation and respect as a highly regarded medical practitioner.

In 1845, famine broke out in Ireland and Dr. Coghlan advocated for a fever hospital in Kilmacthomas, serving as its medical officer when it opened. He also championed the workhouse and infirmary, which opened in 1851.

A great humanitarian, who was deeply concerned about the welfare of those entrusted to his care, he was active in projects tackling the poverty, squalor, disease and starvation prevalent in the district. These included a soup kitchen, the planting of vegetable gardens, the supply of clothing and blankets, improvements to housing conditions and the cultivation of a textile industry.

At times, his concern found him in conflict with the Board of Guardians, which was responsible for the management of the fever hospital and workhouse. Dr. Coghlan did not consider the diet in the hospital as adequate and informed the Guardians of his opinion. They were not willing to incur additional expense to remedy the situation. They pointed out to him a list of hospitals which were run more cheaply.

This prompted Coghlan, who died in 1874, to observe: “If it became the practice to put one hospital against another merely for the cheapness at which it carried out its duties, I know of nothing which could prove more destructive to the objects for which hospitals have been instituted.

”Des Griffin, Chair of Waterford Civic Trust, said he believes that it is important to record the actions and achievements of a person who did so much to improve the lives of others.

“During times of famine and great distress Dr. John Coghlan served the people of Kilmacthomas and the adjoining areas with great professionalism and real compassion. An unsung hero, the Heritage Blue Plaque gives him the public recognition he richly deserves”.

Carnegie Library

1910

Tallow, Co. Waterford

Carnegie Library

Built in 1910, Convent Street, Tallow, the Carnegie Library is one of a group of five in County Waterford and one of over 2,500 worldwide, donated by Scottish philanthropist and business man Andrew Carnegie (1835-1919), at the turn of the twentieth century. (Des Griffin Waterford Civic Trust).

Born in Scotland, Carnegie emigrated with his family to the US in search of a better life. At 12 he began working in the cotton industry and through his natural ability and application became one of the world’s richest men.

Between 1897 and 1913, Carnegie promised over €179,000 to pay for the building of some 80 libraries in Ireland, 60 of which survive today. (Bray People article by Mary Fogarty August 24th 2019 via www.independent.ie )

Scotland-born industrialist and philanthropist Andrew Carnegie amassed an early 20th century steel industry fortune estimated at 309billionintoday’smoney,morethandoublethe309 billion in today’s money, more than double the 309billionintoday’smoney,morethandoublethe136 billion of Bill Gates software wealth. More importantly, Carnegie was the “father of modern philanthropy”, including the funding of 2509 public libraries in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and New Zealand.In Ireland, 80 Carnegie library branches were opened between 1897 and 1913, a decade before the island’s political partition and civil war. Carnegie died 11 August 1919, at age 83.

On the centenary of Andrew Carnegie’s death, An Post issued some new stamps to commemorate four of the libraries in the Republic of Ireland. At the unveiling of these stamps on the 14th of August 2019, Felix M Larkin, Chairman of An Post’s Philatelic Advisory Committee, and founding member of the Newspaper and periodical History Forum of Ireland said in his speech:
“A characteristic of the Carnegie libraries is that, apart from their contribution to scholarship and learning, they were invariably housed in beautiful buildings – architectural ornaments in the towns and cities in which they were located…Libraries are the foundation of all scholarship, where books, newspapers, photographs, prints and drawings – and now digital material too – are lovingly preserved for posterity. And they are preserved not only for use by the elite scholar laboring away in a university, in an ivory tower (so to speak), but for everyone with the curiosity to want to learn more about history, literature and a host of other things - or indeed just to enjoy the pleasure of reading and be enriched by it. Libraries are fundamentally democratic centers of learning, open to everyone – and free.…

Carnegie funded libraries, museums, and other cultural institutions in the region that directly contributed to my ability to learn about history, literature and a host of other things”. (Mark Holan Irish American Blog www.markholan.org).

Flanagan Brothers

1919 - 1936

1, Summer Hill Terrace

Flanagan Brothers

The Flanagan Brothers, originally of No.1 Summerhill Terrace, Waterford City moved to New York City in 1911, and a decade later Mike (tenor banjo), Joe (diatonic accordion and piano), and Louis (jaw harp, banjo, and twin-necked guitar) became the most popular Irish performers in New York.

The popularity that the Flanagan Brothers gained playing New York dance halls, clubs and bars such as Donovan Ballroom, the East 55th Street Lyceum, and the Imperial Lyceum drew major US record labels like Columbia and Victor, and the Flanagan Brothers quickly established themselves as the most prolific Irish recording artists of their day.

The remarkable body of work recorded sold well in America, Britain and Ireland. The vast number of songs and skits the Flanagan Brothers recorded during their twelve years together is all the more impressive when considered in relation to the history of the recording industry in the early 20thC. The Flanagan Brothers recordings provided a means of preserving and celebrating Irish culture, history, and identity – artistic contributions that were highly significant in a context where Irish immigrants to the US encountered rampant discrimination.

In sharing the distinctive cultural and historic legacy of the Irish through music and song, the Flanagan Brothers provided Irish immigrants with depictions of Irish experience and identity that evoked a sense of pride…an opportunity to reflect on what it meant to be Irish, what it meant to be American, and what it meant to fuse the two…the Flanagan Brothers functioned as Irish-American seanchaidhthe, carrying forward histories that might have otherwise been lost…connecting lives…preserving memories that helped to provide grounding in the midst of deep uncertainty and radical change.

The above is from a publication by Michael-John DePalma, Associate Professor of English at Baylor University entitled ‘Ambassadors, Seanchaidhthe, and Pioneers: Reflections on the Musical legacy of Mike Flanagan and the Flanagan Brothers’.

James Upton

1872 - 1956

99, Mount Sion

James Upton

James W Upton was an Irish journalist who participated in the 1916 Easter Rising, but whose contribution to Ireland and dedication to the freedom of speech is largely forgotten today.

Upton started working as a reporter for the Waterford Star newspaper in 1904, after several years of writing Gaelic reports for various regional newspapers under the pseudonym “Valiant.” The Sinn Féiner was forced to resign from the paper in 1914 as a result of his nationalist activity and became the editor of the Kilkenny Journal. He also wrote and edited for Joseph Stanley’s Gaelic Press, providing copy for the Gaelic Athlete and editing Honesty and the Spark under the pen names Gilbert Galbraith and Ed Dalton.

In March 1916, the British authorities raided the Gaelic Press. Afterwards, Stanley and Upton continued publication of the Spark in the basement of Liberty Hall, under a guard provided by the Irish Citizen Army.

A recent piece in the Irish Times recounts Upton’s contribution to the 1916 Easter Rising: “On Monday, April 24th, following a meeting with Pearse and Connolly in the GPO, Stanley commandeered a small printing works in Halston Street in order to print and distribute Pearse’s bulletins. Upton remained with Stanley throughout the Easter Rising, jointly authoring several articles in Irish War News and assisting with printing and distribution of subsequent bulletins. In the aftermath of the Rising, Upton slipped back to Kilkenny to continue his editorial role and republican agitation; activities that earned him a Black and Tan 'death warrant' in 1921.

”Upton has never received recognition for his role, in part due to his own reticence in seeking credit. He refused to claim a pension or medal, saying that what he did was for Ireland and he did not want a reward for a job “only half done.”

After leaving the Kilkenny Journal in 1922, Upton spent and number of years working as a freelancer and served six years as editor of the radical national weekly journal Honesty.

The Irish Times writes: “Upton, who had a lifetime commitment to freedom of speech, offered a platform in Honesty to political views from across the spectrum, a policy that would eventually bring him into conflict with the leadership of Fianna Fáil. In July 1929, Upton published an article by Patrick Belton that attacked the leadership of the party, accusing them, among other things, of lying in the Dáil. Boland and Lemass cited Belton’s article as justification for surreptitiously instructing the party membership to boycott Honesty, an action that effectively sounded its death knell.

“However, the attack on Honesty was as much about de Valera’s interest in the flagging Nation and the soon to be launched Irish Press, as it was about their ire at Upton’s editorial policy. Honesty struggled on for another couple of years but eventually closed in February 1931. In May of the same year Upton launched a new publication, Publicity; however, it failed after just eight months, ultimately ending Upton’s career as an editor.

”Upton would continue to work as a freelance journalist until 1945, when he was forced to take up employment as a reference librarian with Waterford City Library.

He died in Waterford, in 1956, at the age of 84.

Patrick O'Keeffe

1890 - 1939

Little Michael Street

Patrick O'Keeffe

On the 15th of April 2019 (the 107th anniversary of the exact day the Titanic sank), Waterford Civic Trust unveiled a Heritage Blue Plaque remembering Waterford man, Patrick O’Keeffe, who was a survivor of one of the greatest maritime disasters of all time, the sinking of the RMS Titanic, on the 15th of April 1912.

Patrick O’Keeffe was born on the 11th of July 1890 in Little Michael Street; the first of eight children born to John and Catherine O’Keeffe. He received his education from the Sisters of Charity and the De La Salle Brothers.

At the age of nineteen – or even younger – Patrick went to America. In 1912 he decided to return to Waterford and spend a holiday with his family, now living at 2, Spring Garden Alley. It was during this visit that one of his brothers persuaded him to stay a week longer. This required that Patrick change his ticket from the Baltic to one for the maiden voyage of the Titanic

.On the 11th of April he boarded the liner at Queenstown (Cobh), County Cork. As a third class passenger on the ‘unsinkable ship’, he was assigned a cabin, which he shared with other single men, on one of the lower decks.

When the Titanic struck an iceberg just before midnight on the 14th of April, Patrick was quick to react when water started to come into his cabin. He jumped off the sinking ship; fortunately, he was a strong swimmer, and reached the famous overturned ‘Collapsible B’ life raft, that ‘became the last refuge from death in the icy North Atlantic’. He helped pull other passengers from the freezing water. The survivors were rescued by the ship Carpathia and taken to New York. Patrick never again returned to Ireland, and died in 1939.

Writing to his father from New York, shortly after his rescue, he told of a premonition he had of the disaster. “I dreamt myself she [Titanic], was going down before I left Queenstown, and I thought to sell my passage, but I thought if I went back to Waterford again the boys would be laughing at me. I lost everything I had on the Titanic, but thank God, my life was spared.”

Like other survivors, he put in a claim against the ship’s owners, the White Star Line, for his losses and injuries. The compensation offered him was a third class passage back to Ireland, provided that he did not take any legal action against the company. This offer was declined by Patrick. Lawsuits continued until 1916 when a final settlement of $663,000 was made to six-hundred and fifty-one claimants. As a steerage passenger, Patrick only received a small amount of this money.

Patrick O’Keeffe was the only Waterford person on board the doomed Titanic, and only one of sixty-nine third class passengers to survive out of over five hundred men.

Alexander Nimmo

1783 - 1832

Dunmore East, Waterford

Alexander Nimmo

Alexander Nimmo (1783-1832), civil engineer, was the son of a watchmaker. He was probably born in Cupar, Fife, but as a child moved to nearby Kirkcaldy.

He was educated in Kirkcaldy, possibly at the grammar school. Then, from 1797 he attended Latin, Greek, mathematics, logic, ethics and natural philosophy classes at St Andrew's University, and in 1799-1800 physics, ethics and mathematics classes at Edinburgh University. He then became a tutor and teacher.

In summer 1811, Nimmo resigned his teaching post as Rector (headmaster) of Inverness Royal Academy, and was employed on the recommendation of Thomas Telford by the commission on the practicability of draining and cultivating the bogs in Ireland.

About this time, almost certainly at Telford's instigation, Nimmo wrote valuable original articles for The Edinburgh Encyclopaedia on 'Boscovitch's theory', the theory of bridges, the theory of carpentry, and 'Draining', all first published in 1812-13 and later, part of 'Navigation, inland', published in 1821. Throughout 1811, 1812, and 1813 Nimmo worked intensively for the Irish Bogs Commission, and his admirable series of maps and reports on draining and cultivating bogs in Roscommon, Co. Kerry, Cork, and Galway, covering close on 2000 square miles, were published in 1814 in the commissioners' fourth report. His proposals included canals, river navigation improvements, and roads.

In 1814-15 Nimmo made proposals for a harbour near Dunmore, Waterford, and for improving the river and harbour of Cork. He became engineer for extensive works at Dunmore harbour and from 1820 onwards was employed by the Irish Fisheries Board to make surveys of the coast and harbours of Ireland and their internal communication, and to build various harbours and piers.

In 1822 Nimmo was also appointed engineer for improving the western district of Ireland, mainly Connemara. Upwards of thirty piers or harbours were built under his direction on the Irish coast, and a bridge and docks at Limerick were designed by him. His most important bridge was the elliptical five-arch masonry Wellesley (now Sarsfield) Bridge over the Shannon at Limerick, constructed 1824-35.

From about 1823 Nimmo practised increasingly in north-west England as a consulting engineer. Although business occupied much of his time, Nimmo also made contributions to practical astronomy, chemistry, and geology. He was elected a fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh in 1811, a member of the Royal Irish Academy (to whom he contributed a paper relating geology and navigation) in 1818, and a member of the Institution of Civil Engineers in 1828.

Pig Buyers Association

1884 - 1935

Ballybricken

Pig Buyers Association

Waterford Civic Trust unveiled a blue plaque in Ballybricken marking the headquarters of the Pig Buyers’ Association, 1884-1935. The pig buyers were central to the economy of Waterford, and also played a major role in its social and political life. They were influential in the formation of local opinion, a fact which became very apparent during a by-election in the city in 1891.

The pig buyers were heirs to a radical republican tradition: portraits of Thomas Francis Meagher and John Mitchel, leaders of the 1848 Young Ireland Rising, took pride of place in their headquarters at Ballybricken. Staunch Parnellites, they threw their support behind Redmond, and in an era when elections were hard fought they made their presence felt.

In 1892, the Pig Buyers’ Association became involved in a bitter dispute, which was to last five years. The great bacon trade dispute began when the bacon curers of Waterford introduced a system by which farmers could sell pigs directly to the factories, rather than using the pig buyers, who had traditionally acted as middlemen in the process. The new arrangements proved popular with farmers and the buyers found it increasingly difficult to compete against the agents of the curers. The Pig Buyers’ Association demanded an end to the new practice. In 1895 it looked as if a resolution was in sight but the curers withdrew their terms. Instead, they offered to assist the buyers and their families to emigrate. Another group may have accepted this offer, but not the pig buyers of Ballybricken. They were made of different mettle and were determined to save their livelihood from extinction.

The dispute continued until July 1897. The bacon curers, however, were able to continue the production of meat and forced the Pig Buyers’ Association to come to terms with them. In July the buyers accepted a settlement: the curers offered to confine direct dealings with farmers to two days per week and to pay the pig buyers an extra shilling per hundredweight on all pigs they delivered.

Tedmond, and Ballybricken. It was this unique bond that ensured the political dominance of the Home Rule Party at local level, a dominance which survived the Sinn Féin landslide in the 1918 general election.

Bro. Potamian

1846 - 1917

De La Salle

Br. Potamian O’Reilly; Pioneer of Radiology

Brother Potamian was appointed professor of physics in the De La Salle Training College in 1893 where he taught for three years. Having trained in the United States and Canada, he transferred to London where he established connections with some of the great scientific minds of the day. He wrote numerous scientific papers on electricity and magnetism. He participated in major exhibition events in London, Vienna, Paris and Chicago.

On 13 April 1896, at the request of local Waterford medic, Dr Ringrose Atkins Brother Potamian performed one of the first ever X-rays in Ireland revealing a small steel splinter in a woman’s hand which the doctor was then able to remove. Brother Potamian transferred from Waterford to Manhattan College in New York some four months later where he continued to make major contributions to scientific development. When he died in 1917 the New York Herald described Brother Potamian as “one of the pioneers of radiography”.

De La Salle Teacher Training College

1891-1939

De La Salle

De La Salle Teacher Training College

The De La Salle Teaching Training College first opened its doors in Waterford in 1891 to both lay and religious training students. It built up its reputation as a training college for male primary teachers until it was forced to close in 1939. It is estimated that during the forty-eight years in existence over 4,000 teachers were trained who were employed in primary schools all over Ireland. Over its first three decades, the training college operated under the rules and regulations laid down by the British Government in Westminster. Having developed through the years of national upheaval and political unrest, the training college transferred to Free State structure after 1922.

The high standard of candidates qualifying for teaching training during this period was remarkable. In 1934 the Irish government was forced to drastically reduced the number of teachers qualifying during this period and a decision was finally taken to close the training college in Waterford in 1939 for economic and demographic reasons. The training college building was adapted for use by the De La Salle Brothers and reopened as a boarding and secondary school for boys in 1949.

Erin’s Own GAA Centenary

1924 - 2024

Mayor's Walk

Erin’s Own GAA Centenary

Waterford Civic Trust unveiled a blue plaque commemorating the contribution of Erin’s Own Club to GAA in Waterford on Mayor’s Walk in Waterford. Erin's Own GAA Club is celebrating 100 years in existence in 2024, making them the oldest hurling club in Waterford city. The club was founded by in 1924 on Mayor’s Walk in Waterford by a group led by Con Ward and included among others – Martin Cullen, Bush Reddy, Davey Fardy, JJ Hodgers, Michael Fraher, Fr. Sheehan and a Cork born youth named Charlie Ware. Charlie Ware proved to be an outstanding hurler and leader. It was from this humble start on Ballybricken the Erin’s Own emerged to lead Waterford to hurling glory.

The club has a rich history in the city. The greatest day for the club was on September 5th, 1948, when Erin’s Owns Jim Ware led Waterford to its first All-Ireland Senior Hurling Crown. With continued use of available resources, Erin’ s Own continues to thrive in the world of GAA.

Garda Centenary

1922 - 2022

Lady Lane

Garda Centenary Commemoration

Waterford Civic Trust unveiled a blue plaque on Lady Lane in Waterford to commemorate the centenary anniversary of the arrival of the Civic Guard/ Garda Siochana into the city in 1922. On Saturday, October 14, three sergeants and 28 Guards of the newly formed Civic Guard arrived in Waterford City. They were met at the railway station by representatives of the Corporation. The Guards marched in double file across the old Redmond Bridge and down the Quay. They turned into Barronstrand Street, continued up Broad Street, and then entered Lady Lane, where their barracks was situated.

On their arrival at their destination, the Guards were addressed by the then Mayor of Waterford, Councillor Vincent White: “I wish to say, on behalf of the Corporation and citizens of Waterford, and as one Irish man to another, that we are delighted to see you and we extend to you a very hearty welcome to Waterford…We look upon you as friends and I am sure you think of us as friends too....” The aim of the Civic Guard/Garda Síochána was to win the respect and loyalty of most people in Waterford and throughout Ireland.

Frank Ryan

1900 - 1965

West Street Tallow

Frank Ryan, renowned tenor

Waterford Civic Trust unveiled a blue plaque at West Street, Tallow Co. Waterford to commemorate the tenor Frank Ryan, often referred to as “the Waterford tenor”, who was born in Fermoy, Co. Cork in October 1900. When he was three years old his family moved to Tallow. In his mid-20s Frank discovered he was a tenor with much promise. Upon this discovery he went on to win a solo tenor award at the Dublin Feis Ceoil in 1931. He joined the Fermoy Choral Society in 1935 and took leading roles in many shows. When he competed in the Dublin Feis Ceoil in 1938 adjudicator Topliss Green, said Frank had “one of the most beautiful tenor voices” he had heard for a long time.

In 1939, Frank turned professional when he joined the Dublin Operatic Society He travelled extensively as a result worldwide in countries including England, Scotland, Belgium, France, Malta and the US. He appeared regularly on Radio Eireann, BBC and RTE. Frank’s last public performance was in Fermoy with the Choral Society on June 29, 1965, just three weeks before he died on July 17, 1965, at the age of 64.

Mary Strangman

1872 - 1943

SETU Campus, Carriganore

Dr. Mary Strangman

Dr Mary Somerville Parker Strangman was born on 16 March 1872 in Carriganore, Kiloterran, County Waterford. She was the sixth of seven children for Thomas Haddock Strangman and Sarah White Strangman. She was educated at home alongside her four brothers and two sisters. Early in her life she developed a passion for medicine. In 1891 Mary, alongside her sister Lucia, entered the Royal College of Surgeons Ireland (RSCI). After qualifying 1896 Mary spent several years working in England. In 1902, she became the second Irishwoman to obtain a fellowship to the RSCI. In 1903, Mary set up practice in Waterford and worked in a voluntary capacity with local female charities.

Mary was also a member of the Irish Women’s Suffrage and Local Government Association. In 1908 she was a co-founder of the Waterford branch of the Women’s National Health Association of Ireland. On the 15 January 1912, Mary stood for election, becoming Waterford’s first woman councillor. She retired from public office in 1920. In 1923 she was appointed physician at Waterford County and City Infirmary, and also continued in general practice until shortly before her death at her sister’s house in Dún Laoghaire on 30 January 1943.

God's People's House

1478

Cathederal Square

God’s People’s House

On All Souls’ Day (2 November 1478) Dean John Collyn of the Cathedral of the Holy Trinity, Christ Church, Waterford, founded an almshouse. It was supported by rents received from land and properties which were donated by leading citizens to Collyn. Twelve elderly men and women resided in it. Instead of paying rent, occupants were expected to pray for the founder of the house three times a day. Initially the house had one hearth or fire on which a communal meal was cooked using a great bronze cauldron supplied by Collyn. In this endeavour to alleviate the plight of the poor Collyn was supported by Mayor James Ryan.

By the time of the Reformation, nearly sixty years later, the almshouse had fallen into abeyance. During the mid eighteenth century, architect John Roberts acquired the property and a century later it was turned into tenements.

Raymond Chandler

1888 - 1959

John's Hill

Raymond Chandler

Raymond Thorton Chandler, born in Chicago 1888, was a British American novelist and screenwriter. He is often credited with being the founder of the school of detective fiction. Raymond lived in the US until he turned seven when his mother, Florence, moved to an area near London. Upon receiving an education and working in Dulwich College. In 1919, Raymond returned to the US to rekindle his literary career. Between 1933 and 1941 Raymond wrote 22 short stories. In 1939, he wrote his first novel The Big Sleep. He went on to write seven more novels that all featured the fictional character, Philip Marlowe.

In 1944, Raymond was asked by Paramount Pictures to write the script for the film Double Indemnity with Billy Wilder; the film was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Adapted Screenplay. It was the first of seven film scripts written. In 1959, Raymond died from pneumonia. In the aftermath of his death, many of his unpublished writings—including letters, literary criticism and prose and poetry—were released. It is because of all this that Raymond Chandler is often considered to the greatest mystery writer of all time.

John Kent

1805 - 1872

Hanover Street

John Kent

On Thursday, May 23, at 3.30pm, Canadian Ambassador to Ireland HE Nancy Smyth unveiled the Waterford Civic Trust Heritage Blue Plaque on Hanover Street, Waterford City.

The plaque pays tribute to Waterford-born John Kent, who was the second ever Premier of Newfoundland between 1858-1861. John Kent was born in Waterford in 1805, and arrived in Newfoundland in 1820.

Since the end of the 17th century, Irish people emigrated to the territory seeking work and a better life, mainly in the fishing industries.In the 19th century, writer Henry Winton noted about the makeup of Newfoundland: "Friars from Waterford hold the bishopric of St. John’s... All the leaders of parliament are Waterfordians... Newfoundland is merely Waterford parted from the sea.

According to the Trust: "The Irish language persisted in some considerable strength throughout the whole of the eighteenth and into the beginning of the nineteenth century. A most distinctive feature of the island is the accent of many of its inhabitants – unmistakably Irish with strong hints of Ballybricken!"

Kent's time in office was a tumultuous one, caught between a downturn in the local fishery economy and a fraught relationship with the Catholic bishop, which did not endear him to fellow Irish-American citizens. Kent was dismissed by the British Ambassador of Newfoundland in 1861. He passed away in his sleep September 1872, survived by his wife and two (at least) children.The Chair of Waterford Civic Trust, Dr Eugene Broderick, said in a statement: "In honouring Kent, the deep ties between Waterford and Newfoundland are also remembered and celebrated."