Valentia to mark cable’s Newfoundland connection

IT’S been a month of celebrating the dawn of transatlantic communication in Valentia and the good news is that it’s not ‘over and out’ just yet.

The commemorations have so far focused on the ‘Great Eastern’ and its famous trans-Atlantic cable voyage from Valentia Island. However, the focus now switches to its destination – Hearts Content - and this Wednesday, July 27, sees an extensive programme of events laid on to mark an epic era in communications history.

This Wednesday is also the exact day, 150-years ago, that the ‘Great Eastern’ arrived on the other side of the Atlantic and a live link will be made from the Cable Station on Valentia Island with Heart’s Content at exactly 2.30pm – the same time the first message was made on that historic day in 1866.

The live link will be made by the Institute for Engineering and Technology and the IET’s history goes back to the Society of Telegraph Engineers, founded in 1871 by Lord Kelvin, Wheatstone, Cooke and others – three people with direct links to the founding of the telegraph industry in the 1800s.

At 5pm a simultaneous unveiling will also take place in Valentia Island and Hearts Content of identical marine bollards; which designer, Padraig Tarrant, has carefully composed to incorporate the maritime tradition of each town and the physical aspect of the cable and the history of migration between both continents.

Lastly, at 6.30pm, Bill Burns will present a historical lecture entitled: ‘The Trans-Atlantic cable of 1866 - its influence on communications and society’. The lecture will take the successful laying of the 1866 cable as a starting point and follow up on its effects on communications across the Atlantic, and worldwide, during the remaining years of the nineteenth century.

Further information can be found at www. telegraphcablefestival.ie or visit their Facebook page.