PHOTOGRAPHIC JOURNEY THROUGH MARITIME PAST
HUNDREDS of photographs from the extensive collection of the Kilmore Quay author and historian John Power will form an exhibition which will open at the Rosslare Harbour Maritime Heritage Centre on Friday, April 7 at 7 pm.
The collection is entitled ‘A Maritime History of County Wexford Through Photographs’ and will be officially launched by Cllr. Jim Moore. It will run at the centre for six weeks up to May 21.
The exhibition will feature hundreds of maritime photographs covering the 150-mile County Wexford coastline from Courtown Harbour to New Ross. The viewer will be taken back to the second half of the 1800’s when Wexford had a shipping service to Liverpool and the Bristol Channel with steamships and sailing vessels through to the First World War when young Wexford men joined the British Navy, resulting in the loss of many lives.
The dangerous Wexford coastline was known as the graveyard of 1,000 ships. Mr. William Powell, Wexford agent for Lloyds of London said that from Bannow to the Blackwater Bank, a distance of 25 miles, a total of 173 ships were wrecked between 1808 and 1844.
Every aspect of County Wexford maritime history is covered in the exhibition including coastguards, lightship men, lifeboat ceremonies, boat building, harbour developments, the building and launch of the famine ship Dunbrody and the Wexford fishing industry. Many of the photographs are being shown for the first time.
The committee of the Maritime Heritage Centre have written to several primary and secondary schools around the county, encouraging students to visit the exhibition.
‘It is up to these young people to keep our maritime history alive in the future,’ said John, author of the two-volume ‘Maritime History of County Wexford’, which chronicles 100 years of the county’s coastline from 1859. He also compiled ‘Historic Portraits from the Charles E. Vize Collection.’ The exhibition opening hours are from 2pm to 6pm each day.