Across The Sea To Ireland

Across The Sea to Ireland There were many vessels sailing between the two shores. These used many of the little and primitive ports such as at Marypans, Carskey, Pollywilline, Glen-hervie and Feochaig but the most frequented port was that at Dunaverty, sometimes referred to as Machrimore, where too there was a customs officer ! Besides being situated at the extreme end of the Kintyre peninsula, it offered different landing sites which could be used according to the different wind directions. If wind and tide permitted, the normal landing place would be within the mouth of the Conie Water, under the shelter of Dunaverty Rock. If landing there were impossible, a boat could pull up in Dunaverty Bay “the beach being contiguous to the Water of Machrimore on the East side.” Landings and departures at Dunaverty were often difficult, sometimes impossible. In September 1802, John McKillop, master of the Cushendun-based ferry-boat “Mary Ann”, an open boat, found that the southerly wind made landing impossible and simply threw his load of fifteen cattle into the sea to make their own way ashore ! For the Antrim glensmen, the short crossing was undoubtedly a blessing. Until the Antrim coast road was built in the 1830’s, those living in the glens had no easy access to their hinterland as the barren plateau behind and the precipitous promontories of Park Head and Garron Point effectively cut them off from the rest of Ireland. They were thus largely dependent upon neighbouring Kintyre for the sale of their produce and the purchase of the requirements they could not provide for themselves. Two ferry boats operated, one from Cushendun, the other from Dunaverty, operating his service under a lease from The Duke of Argyll. In 1792, Kenneth Morrison, the ferryman and innkeeper at Muneroy in Southend, who used two half-decked boats for the service, petitioned The Duke of Argyll to clear two rocks in the middle of the river mouth at Southend as they were adding to difficulties in southerly and westerly winds. The clearance of the river-mouth and, Morrison hoped, the provision of a “safe and commodious harbour that might induce Argyll’s other local tenants to ship their grain, butter and cheese for Greenock or Campbeltown, to obtain a better and more ready market.” Morrison had lost two boats, worth £60, in the previous eighteen months and the cost of blasting away the offending rocks, just £15, was subsequently paid out by the Argyll Estate - two years later ! Four years after that, a local survey was carried out by George Langlands and it resulted in the lower Conie Water being straightened out, in 1817, which made for a safer landing for the ferries. In 1802, the regular Cushendun-based ferry was the fifteen ton “Rattlesnake”, an open boat, captained by Charles McAllister. On March 2, 1808, the Campbeltown Customs Collector, in a letter to his Board in Edinburgh regarding a vacancy for a tidewaiter, customs officer, at Southend, noted the ferries as being “ the principal communication betwixt this country and Ireland from whence there is daily intercourse”. The ferry seems to have continued running passengers and cargo till around the 1850’s when it was overtaken by the convenience and the comfort of the many steamer services which now plied The North Channel. Sometime around 1909, The Glasgow and South Western Railway Company drew up plans to run a light railway to Southend and reopen the Irish ferry.

Irish Lights The first Irish lighthouse, at Hook Head, near Waterford, was maintained by sixth-century monks. In 1758, Rathlin Island’s owner proposed that the Irish Parliament erect a light on Rathlin, similar to the lights at Howth Head, near Dublin, lit in 1751 and on the Copeland Islands. Rathlin’s East Lighthouse was not lit till 1856. Originally, as this was before the invention of revolving lights with flashing characteristics, there were two vertically fixed lights, 80-feet apart, placed so that sailing ships could sail in close to the north side of the islands till the lights disappeared.

1