Book Launch: The Little Book of Irish Athletics

The launch of Tom Hunt's new book The Little Book of  Irish Athletics published by The History Press will take place at The Book Centre Waterford on Friday 8 December at 6.30.

Dermot Keyes of the Munster Express and WLRfm will launch the book. 

The Little Book of Irish Athletics records Irish athletic excellence in its 13 chapters. Two chapters deal with the various organisations responsible for managing the sport over 140 + years, three chapters on the achievements of Irish athletes pre-Irish independence; one on the world championships, one on the Olympics, Irish athletes and the mile, women and Irish athletics, the Irish and indoor athletics, the USA scholarships system and chapter 13 finishes with More Milestones.

And a great Waterford man on the cover in the finest moment of his athletic career. 

Lecture: The sinking of the Waterford steamers Coningbeg and Formby and the Great War off the Irish coast.

The sinking of the Waterford steamers Coningbeg and Formby and the Great War off the Irish coast.

A lecture by Edward J. Bourke to the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society

November 24^th, 2017

The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society lecture season for 2017 and 2018 continues on Friday 24th November with a lecture at 8 pm in St Patrick’s Gateway Centre, Patrick Street, Waterford by Edward J. Bourke titled ‘The sinking of the Waterford steamers Coningbeg and Formby and the Great War off the Irish coast’.

The Great War impacted Ireland in several ways. While large numbers of men went to the front as soldiers and many Irishmen served in the Royal Navy, on the Home Front farmers and agricultural workers enjoyed something of an economic boom and there was employment to be had in a small number of munitions works. In port cities such as Waterford there was a long tradition in many families of serving as merchant seamen. In peacetime the work was hard but provided a reliable income which sustained many families, however, in time of war merchant seaman and the ships they sailed in ran great risks as the people of Waterford learnt 100 years ago.

Between 1914 and 1918 the merchant navy was critical to the war effort, transporting people and goods between Ireland and Britain and allied countries. However, merchant shipping suffered terribly in the submarine war waged by the German Navy. In the initial stages of the war at sea U-boat commanders sank merchant ships after issuing a warning, this gave crews time to abandon ship. However, that practice ceased in 1915 when British government armed merchant ships in contravention of the established ‘cruiser rules’. This heralded the beginning of unrestricted submarine warfare, the best known shipping casualty being the RMS Lusitania which was sunk in May 1915. The Irish Sea and the waters off the south coast of Ireland were amongst the most active theatres of this unforgiving war. In December 1917 the two Waterford steam ships Coningbeg and Formby were torpedoed and sank with the loss of all hands while sailing between Liverpool and Waterford. Their crews and passengers and their surviving families were sad casualties of this less well known aspect of the war that cost 22 million lives.

Edward J. Bourke is a highly regarded maritime historian and author with a special interest in Irish shipwrecks. He has published three volumes on the history of shipwrecks along the Irish coast. He wrote ‘Bound for Australia’ the definitive account of the wrecking of the emigrant ship The Tayleur in 1854 which led to the loss of almost 400 souls in 1854. He is also author of ‘The Guinness Story – the family, the business and the black stuff’.  He has a special interest in the Great War off the Irish coast.

This lecture has been organised by Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society as part of the commemorative events to mark the centenary of these tragic sinkings in 1918. It will be of interest to anyone interested in the Waterford’s rich maritime history particularly during World War 1.

Admission to the lecture is €5 (students €2.50), but is free for members of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society. 

Images: Copper Coast Literary Festival

Book Review: The Life of Dr Thomas Hussey, 1746-1803: Bishop of Waterford and Lismore

Liam Murphy, The Life of Dr. Thomas Hussey, 1746-1803: Bishop of Waterford and Lismore (Kingdom Books, Dublin, 2016), ISBN 978-0-9524567-8-0, pp 175.

On a wall in the grounds of Holy Trinity Cathedral on Waterford’s Barronstrand Street is a thick limestone memorial with the following inscription: ‘D. O. M. Hic jacent sepultae exuviae mortales Reverendis: & Illustris: Dom. Thomae Hussey L.L.D. Qui per septem annos Ecclesiam Waterfordiens: et Lismoriens: rexit Obiit anno 1803 Die Julii 11^mo Aetatis 62^o Requiescat in Pace’. It takes only a little rudimentary Latin translation to learn that here are buried the remains of Thomas Hussey, once Catholic Bishop of Waterford and Lismore.

Hitherto, those wishing to learn more about Hussey’s life and times had a range of sources which they could consult. There was an article by Patrick Power in the Irish Ecclesiastical Record in 1935, and more recently an entry by Dáire Keogh in the Dictionary of Irish Biography, among several others. What was lacking was a full, comprehensive and up-to-date biography, and Liam Murphy has filled that gap with what will surely become the definitive work on this remarkable prelate.

Born in Co Meath in 1746, Hussey led a fascinating and varied life. In addition to being Bishop of Waterford and Lismore in his later years, Hussey also became the first president of Maynooth College when it was established in 1795.  His time as chaplain to the Spanish Embassy in London led indirectly to him gathering intelligence for the Spanish during the American War of Independence, and subsequently acting as a diplomat in Anglo-Spanish negotiations.

Murphy’s approach is basically chronological, with greater focus on some elements of Hussey’s career (unsurprisingly, scant information survives concerning his formative years, and these take up a mere six pages). A whole chapter is devoted to the pastoral letter he wrote in April 1797, concerning Catholic soldiers being forced to attend Protestant services, publication of which ‘was probably Hussey’s most famous action’. The pastoral is also reproduced in full as an appendix. Much of the pastoral consists of condemnation of what Hussey described as ‘this impolitic tyranny’. The pastoral prompted a series of pamphlets in angry response. Murphy is effective in placing the document in context. Its tone was widely considered to be intemperate, and those who took a dim view of the pastoral included his fellow bishops.

One of the threads running through the book is Hussey’s relationship with the philosopher and statesman Edmund Burke, and Murphy draws heavily on Burke’s published correspondence. Hussey attended Burke’s funeral and there is a belief that not only was he present during Burke’s final days, but that he also received him into the Catholic Church.

Murphy explains in the introduction that the book began life as an MA thesis completed in UCC in 1968. In its new incarnation, it takes account of relevant scholarship published in the intervening decades, and it is to the author’s credit that the sewing together of original thesis and new material is seamless. Occasional indications of when the original work was written are to be found, however – for instance in the bibliography, the Rebellion Papers are located in the Public Record Office, not the National Archives. Typographical errors occur, but not in abundance, and those that do are generally insignificant.

Canon J. Anthony Gaughan in his foreward to the book describes it as ‘a valuable contribution to the history of the diocese of Waterford and Lismore’; this it undoubtedly is, and to the history of Irish Catholicism more broadly.

Cian Flaherty

Images: Decies No. 73 Launch - Imagine Arts Festival