A Cornish Fisherman's Irish Diary

By Trevor Simpson

The second instalment in the Cornish Fisherman's Diaries series by Trevor Simpson takes up exactly where volume one (Diary of a Cornish Fisherman: Newquay, 1962-1967) left off. The author makes landfall in Dunmore East, on Ireland’s south-east coast, following a pulsating journey across the Irish Sea.
"I had been staring into a white wall of fog for many hours. I steered my boat, the 35ft MFV Reaper, by her compass. The fog was doing my head in and I fought the pressing urge to sleep. Knowing that I should have made landfall quite a while back proved to me that I was lost, lost in unfamiliar waters. I desperately needed to find a safe harbour before dark ..."
What awaits the author upon disembarking; what he makes of this strange new world called Ireland (and what Ireland makes of him) is the subject of a memoir that is as warm and engaging as the first.
The years that follow would prove challenging, perplexing, refreshing and ultimately rewarding. The fact that he found himself in a place that he was pleased to call home for the next fifty years (and beyond) probably speaks for itself. There is more to the story than that, however.
Volume II in the Cornish Fisherman’s Diaries series.

Trevor Simpson is a retired seafisherman. Born in England, he joined the Royal Navy in 1947, aged just 16, enabling him to travel the world. Upon leaving the Navy, in 1956, he took numerous jobs before finding himself working as Head Lifeguard in the town of Newquay in Cornwall. From there, he got himself aboard a lobster boat and his 35ft MFV Reaper was to be a regular sight along the Cornish coast during the mid-1960s, until he moved to Ireland, in 1967. By this time, his position had elevated from crewman to skipper. Upon moving to Ireland, he resumed fishing out of Dunmore East in Co. Waterford and he continues to reside there with his family. He is well known in the locality and among the fishing and maritime community. He has written two volumes of memoir to date and has also contributed poetry and verse to various anthologies and radio broadcasts.

• Language: English
• Publisher: The Manuscript Publisher
• Release date: Jul 22, 2019
• ISBN: 9780463246931

Trevor Simpson

Trevor Simpson is a retired seafisherman. Born in England, he joined the Royal Navy in 1947, aged just 16, enabling him to travel the world. Upon leaving the Navy, in 1956, he took numerous jobs before finding himself working as Head Lifeguard in the town of Newquay in Cornwall. From there, he got himself aboard a lobster boat and his 35ft MFV Reaper was to be a regular sight along the Cornish coast during the mid-1960s, until he moved to Ireland, in 1967. By this time, his position had elevated from crewman to skipper. Upon moving to Ireland, he resumed fishing out of Dunmore East in Co. Waterford and he continues to reside there with his family. He is well known in the locality and among the fishing and maritime community. He has written two volumes of memoir to date and has also contributed poetry and verse to various anthologies and radio broadcasts.

Book preview

List of Diagrams and Illustrations

Dunmore East 1967 (maps)

Dunmore East today (aerial view)

Voyage of the Reaper

Stern (or transome)

Stern tube

Pair-boat midwater trawl

French barrel type craw/lobster pot

Jenny’s wope

Dahn buoy

Photograph section

Single boat trawl

Herring driftnet

We fell over

Ship diagrams

Dunmore East 1967 (maps)

Dunmore East 1967 and the principal locations referred to in this account. The author’s rendering of the famous fishing village in Co. Waterford, as it appeared to him at the time of his arrival.

Dunmore East today (aerial view)

Dunmore East today. An aerial view courtesy of Google Maps.

1. Fogbound

I had been all day staring into the fog. This was not the first time I had been lost in fog and steering by compass, but it was definitely the worst time. We were somewhere between Wales and Ireland and heading west. There was a slight problem here however, that was due to fact that Ireland, according to my reckoning, should have appeared slap in front of us about two hours ago and as yet, there was still no sign of it. I had been debating this issue with myself for quite a while. Sometimes I wondered if we were still in the Irish Sea and at other times, I almost convinced myself that the compass had gone haywire and we were heading off deep into the Atlantic, perhaps never to be seen again. Yes, I was definitely falling apart. Sleep deprivation, constant staring into the fog, the continuous engine noise and perhaps an odd whiff from a leaking exhaust pipe, were certainly taking their toll. I just had to get tough with myself and resist the temptation to alter course. So, Ireland wasn’t where I thought it was! Well there was nothing I could do about that now, only keep on going until we either reached land or ran out of diesel.

What was I doing here, steaming blindly into the fog? That would be a fair question. I was leaving Cornwall and Newquay, a town that I loved and a charming little house where we were amongst friends, and where we could have happily lived forever. Now I was taking us away from everything that was familiar, this was a leap into the unknown. We didn’t know anyone in Ireland, and Pauline and I seemed to be the only two English people without claim to at least one Irish Granny. I suppose a quick answer to that question was that I was an economic refugee.

By the end of August 1965, we fishermen of North Cornwall knew the worst. The crawfish, which had provided the bulk of our income, were almost completely gone. What had been a sustainable, lucrative fishery had been wiped out in one summer. The sudden influx of divers had found the crawfish an easy target. The favoured crawfish habitat was the rocky seabed between ten and twenty fathoms deep and most of that lay within a couple of miles of the shore. That made it easy for the divers to reach our gear in small boats from Newquay and other places. This is not suggesting that these divers (or rubber-suited vandals, as we called them) actually took crawfish out of our pots. They didn’t need to because the crawfish gathered in large groups on rocky areas on the seabed and so, that made them easy prey. Our gear was placed on the most productive fishing spots and all the divers had to do was concentrate their efforts where they saw our dahns. They very soon learned how to completely remove all the crawfish from a piece of ground before moving on to pastures new. In contrast to the divers, our pots were selective and they only caught crawfish that were feeding and therefore, in good condition. The divers just took everything, including the ones that were out of condition: those that were about to cast their shells and ones that had already cast and were therefore dormant. They were soft, like jelly until their new shells hardened. We saw the evidence of this at low tide when the Newquay Harbour sand was sometimes littered with abandoned, dead, soft-shelled crawfish.

We knew what was happening and we told those in authority but nobody cared: not our MPs; not the Minister; not the Cornwall Sea Fisheries Committee; not anybody. We abandoned our French-style wooden crawfish pots and changed them for Cornish-type wire lobster pots, which involved lots more work and added expense for us.

I glanced back through the wheelhouse doorway at my crewman, Martin. He was stretched out on the little afterdeck and he seemed to be asleep. I was glad of that because there was nothing he could do to help me. He had said to me earlier, The fog and the vastness of the ocean are doing my head in.

I could agree with him about that anyway because whichever way you looked, you faced the white wall of fog and visibility was down to a few yards. The swells, which often come with the fog, were smooth and evenly spaced and gently lifted us up and lowered us down again. It wasn’t very nice if you’d never seen that kind of thing before.

Martin was a student and I think he was eighteen years old. He came with me, for the adventure, and to try his hand at fishing. He had been fishing with me for only a few days but he had adapted very well. When I suddenly announced that I would be going to Ireland, he offered to come with me. He had relations in Cork and would use the opportunity to visit them.

I concentrated on steering the boat. As each swell slid underneath us, it caused our bow to swing a few degrees off course and so, the helm needed constant adjustment. It wanted only a spoke or two either way but it meant I couldn’t take my hands off the wheel for even one second. I watched the compass and peered ahead and fought against the urge to sleep. The worries kept flooding back. Where the hell was Ireland? I kept asking myself. This was the evening of our second, long day of battling with the fog and I was desperate to find a safe haven before nightfall.

I was having hallucinations. I looked to port and saw that the sea surface was all sheets of corrugated steel, undulating with the swells, while to starboard there were fields and hedges. A stowaway was peeping out from behind our stack of lobster pots. When I roared at him he ducked back out of sight. I told Martin what was happening to me and he went for’ard and warmed up some tinned stew for us, after the food I felt much better and the weirdness diminished somewhat. I was fighting fatigue but I was also very conscious of the dangerous situation we were in. I daren’t collapse; I had got us into this mess and only I could get us out of it. I steadied myself and concentrated on the steering.

The divers’ activities had hit us hard but we had survived it by doing what we did best: by working hard and fishing every hour God gave us. What finally destroyed us was the stranding of the supertanker, Torrie Canyon. She was carrying one hundred and twenty thousand tons of crude oil when, in March 1967, she struck the Seven Stones Reef in the Isles of Scilly. That gave us the world’s first major oil-spill. The North Coast of Cornwall got a good share of that heavy crude oil. To the fishermen, it was really one hammer blow after another.

We had got back fishing again but it was all a struggle. My Skipper, Mike, decided to go and work ashore and I then fished the Reaper with another crewman. Eventually, Mike sold me his boat, the lovely 35ft St Ives Gig, Reaper. He offered it to me under such generous terms that I simply had to buy her. As one might expect, it proved to be a lousy season, the weather was bad and the lobsters were scarce. So here I was at the end of the summer, hopelessly lost and a long way from home.

Looking back on the whole oil-spill episode, I would have thought the Government could have given us some assistance. I mean, they could afford to send RAF planes out to blast the tanker with 500lbs bombs and then to blast it again with napalm bombs to set the escaping oil on fire. They could afford to bring tons of detergent from Scotland to Cornwall. Convoys of lorries with police escorts don’t come cheap. Why couldn’t they have assisted the fishermen, whose livelihoods were so badly affected? What about the tanker owners and the oil company? Were they not insured? Did the Government get compensated for this national disaster? Thinking about all that made me more than pissed-off; it made me angry. Surely, the coast needed a survey to assess the level of damage to wildlife and habitat. Employing a few fishing boats on a survey would have eased the pressure on the lobster stock and it would have given valuable data on the effect of the detergent spraying.

I was losing concentration again and our compass needle swung wildly as I spun the wheel to bring us back on course. The heat coming up into the wheelhouse from the engine room was stifling. Then, just when things seemed at their worst, the fog started to get patchy, permitting the odd shaft of sunlight through. More than once, I was tricked into thinking I could see land ahead of us but each time it proved to be just a dirty grey bank of fog. Then at last, I suddenly saw it. Instinctively, I closed the throttles down but just as quickly as the land had appeared, so it vanished again. Martin heard the change in engine revs and scrambled to his feet. He quickly confirmed that indeed it was land that I’d seen. Moments later, we came across two men in a punt, hand-lining for mackerel and from them we learned that we were off the coast of Co. Waterford. They directed us to Dunmore East, which was only a short distance away and so we headed in the direction they had indicated.

It was just after 7pm on Tuesday, 22nd of August when the Reaper entered Dunmore East Harbour. The persistent fog had turned what should have been a fairly simple trip, from Cornwall to Southern Ireland, into a long and punishing ordeal. I closed the throttles down so that our two diesel engines were just ticking over and we slipped quietly through the calm water of the harbour. The feeling of relief was almost overwhelming. As I glanced around, I could see the fog hanging among the houses on the cliff top above the harbour. Fog wouldn’t be a problem for me now, not even if it came down as thick as a bag again! We were safe at last.

I was extremely tired and I ached all over. My eyes stung and my throat felt as if it was on fire but, as I steered us in towards the well-built stone pier, I just felt happy and really good about things. Very soon I would find a telephone and I would get a message to my wife, Pauline, with the good news that we were safe and sound in Ireland. There was plenty of space along the pier. I could see a few punts moored in a corner of the dock and some small half-deckers, probably lobster boats. There were also two trawler-style boats of about 50ft in length. There was no sign of life on the quay, except for a few people out for an evening stroll. This was such a contrast from Newquay Harbour, which I knew would be absolutely swarming with summer visitors right now.

I lay Reaper alongside the quay and Martin climbed ashore to secure our bow and stern ropes to the bollards. I stopped the engines and I sat down on the wheelhouse doorstep, enjoying the sudden silence. The engines had been running continuously for the last twenty hours or so. Also, for the same period, I had been standing at the wheel staring into the fog. Thinking about it, I realised that the last time I’d sat down was during our brief stop in Milford Haven.

Martin shouted down to me that he was going to go and have a look around.

I sat there for a while and then, feeling a bit better, I stood up and stretched and then worked hard at getting the kinks out of my neck and more especially, out of my knees. Suddenly, I was boarded by three youngsters who came quickly down off the pier. There was hardly room for the four of us on Reaper’s little after-deck but I needn’t have worried because they squeezed past me and got into the wheelhouse. They all talked at once, discussing the boat and its bits and pieces. They fired questions at me but before I could complete an answer I’d be asked, Hey, what’s this for? They pressed all the buttons and switched all the switches and peered down at the engines. I judged them to be fourteen-year-olds and their curiosity was boundless. It was obvious that they were very familiar with fishing boats. Having them come aboard like this was great for me because soon I was asking them about Dunmore East and of course, they were full of information.

After a while, I explained that I must go ashore and so, they obligingly piled out of the wheelhouse. They stood watching me as I went in and put things in order. First, I turned the wheel, ensuring that the rudder was amidships. I picked up the kicking strap, a short piece of rope fixed to the bulkhead. It had a steel ring spliced into it halfway along and I placed the ring onto the top spoke of the wheel. I then secured the free end of the kicking strap to a cleat on the opposite side of the wheel.

What ya doing that for? I was asked.

That’s to stop the rudder from lashing about, I said.

The lads quizzed me about that, which surprised me; I thought the answer was obvious.

Well you know what it’s like, I said, when the tide drops you get a bit of a run in the dock.

They were not happy with that but I was too tired to argue. I made sure the switches were all in the off position. I then took a Fishing News magazine and folded it carefully over the little transistor radio.

What ya doing that for? they wanted to know.

That is to hide the transistor; if the beatniks see it they might break the wheelhouse window to nick it, I said.

What beatniks? they wanted to know.

I dunno what beatniks, I said. Just any bloody beatniks.

I closed the wheelhouse door and put the padlock on the hasp.

What ya doing that for? they asked.

What about thieving and vandalism? I asked them.

One of the lads, who was called Joefy, said, My brother has a big trawler and he never locks it.

His two pals, Maurice and Mark, agreed and they told me. Nobody locks their boat up. Don’t you worry; nobody is going to touch your boat here.

Well that’s great, I said, but privately I thought, ‘That is simply bonkers!’

I next asked them, What time will she go aground?

This question had the three of them convulsed with laughter!

She won’t go aground, they said. Jaysus, what d’you think you have here? The big Dutchmen come in here and even they don’t go aground.

Perhaps I looked unconvinced and they went on to prove the point.

Yes, and ships come in here carrying thousands of barrels too and even they don’t go aground

Well that was a pleasant surprise for me. I was so used to seeing Newquay Harbour dry out completely over the low water that I had assumed that Dunmore East would be the same.

We went up onto the pier and a tall, silver-haired man approached. He was hatless and wore a plain, navy-blue jacket. He greeted me in a friendly fashion and introduced himself as Captain Carroll, the Harbour Master. I told him that I had left Cornwall the previous morning and that I was bound for Goleen in West Cork. He wrote these details into a little notebook. He pointed to his house on the pier and said a telephone was in there if I needed it. Also, he said I could have my mail addressed to Care of the Harbour Master and he would keep it for me to collect. I thanked him and then I apologised for my difficulty in speaking. I was having trouble forming words and I must have sounded really weird!

Honestly, I haven’t been drinking; it’s just tiredness, I struggled to explain.

The Captain said it was okay; he understood and I accompanied him to his house to use the telephone.

We didn’t own a telephone at home but I rang our neighbour, Auntie Molly’s house. My luck was in and Pauline was there. I told her we were safely berthed in Dunmore East on the south coast of Ireland. I said that after a good night’s sleep, we would be leaving here early in the morning, heading for Goleen and that I hoped to reach there before nightfall.

Of course, I had no idea of exactly where Goleen was, having foolishly left the bundle of navigation charts at home in Cornwall. However, I did my best to sound positive and cheerful.

We have just another hundred miles to go and it’s all plain sailing from here on, I said light-heartedly, hoping that Pauline would blame my croaking voice on a bad telephone line.

I walked back to the boat and met Martin there. He was all excited about the bit of Dunmore that he had seen so far and he described it as a very beautiful village. We went back on board Reaper and had something to eat and then, I climbed into the bunk and slept.

The next day, I awoke in the early morning to discover the fog was back. I climbed the stone steps by the lighthouse and stood on top of the storm wall for a couple of minutes, just looking at it. I decided then that we would stay in harbour today because I certainly didn’t want to risk another gruelling trip lost in the fog. Back on board again, I explained the situation to Martin. He said he was quite happy to stay and explore the surroundings. We had a quick breakfast and I decided to go for a long walk. Some exercise would clear away the last traces of stiffness and, I thought, it may clear my head and give me time to think.

It was still only 7am when I walked up the road from the pier, to a point where I could look down on the whole harbour. The sea beyond the storm wall was lost in the fog. There was no sign of life in the harbour but I could see that massive construction work was being carried out. The whole western side of the harbour was a churned-up mass of boulders and red mud. Immediately below where I stood was a fine stone RNLI Lifeboat house, built in the traditional style. In front of this was a little beach with a solid stone jetty separating it from the main harbour. Apart from the few small boats and two fifty-footers, there was just the lifeboat lying at her moorings and the pilot boat, Betty Breen, was berthed at the pier.

I walked on, passing Mrs Burke’s shop and then the large pub called the Ocean Hotel on my left. A few paces further on was another pub called Power’s Bar which, as Martin had discovered, was also known as The Butchers, as it also contained the local butcher’s shop. When I heard of this mixture of trades, I thought it absolutely weird. I looked carefully at the place as I strode past but I could see nothing unusual about it. Opposite this pub was the post office. A bit further on, again on my left, was a small shop called The Bay Café, which had an ancient looking petrol-pump in front of it. On the other side of the road was the Fishermen’s Hall, a fine building standing in its own patch of uncut grass. The next house contained Miss Gertie Burke’s little shop-cum-library.

The village was a mix of fine two storey houses and single-storey thatched cottages. It was a pretty place and seemed to be totally unspoiled. Considering this was the month of August, I was surprised at the empty road. ‘Where were all the parked cars?’ I wondered. There seemed to be no gift shops, no ice-cream parlours nor even any bed-and-breakfast signs. I increased the pace a bit and walked on, past a lovely grassy park with some mature trees growing here and there in it. A long, low stone wall ran the length of the park, separating it from the road. A high stone wall on the left-hand side of the road gave seclusion to a few large, Victorian-looking houses and gardens. A couple of enormous pine trees grew in the gardens close to the wall, so that some of their spreading branches reached out over the road. I wondered how these trees, which I thought must be a century old, could survive so near the coast. Of course, I was used to the stark grandeur of North Cornwall, where you had to go a fair way inland to find trees that were not stunted by the sea-wind.

The high wall ended, and there began the grounds of the Haven Hotel, a beautifully proportioned old mansion. Next to that was the Protestant church, with its high steeple and immediately after that, I came to Harney’s shop and pub, with a bakery in behind it. From there onward, the road sloped down. I found myself walking along by a low cliff topped with over-hanging trees. I paused and looked over the low wall skirting the right-hand side of the road. There was a sheer drop down to the houses of the lower part of the village and I could see a beach, though the sea was hidden by the fog. I set off again, passing Queally’s Garage, which together with a couple of small bungalows close by, seemed to be the end of the village.

I followed the road in the direction of Waterford City and it passed between small green fields and high hedges of hawthorn, blackthorn and ash. Tall grasses and wild flowers grew all along the uncut verges and scented the air. The day grew warmer. I stopped several times to eat the sweet blackberries that grew in the hedges. I could feel the sun on my back and there was now no trace of fog. Perhaps it still lay thick down at sea level but I was walking under a clear blue sky and thoroughly enjoying it. For a while, I walked past a large area of tall rushes and then I saw the lake. At first, I saw only a small bit of it, shining in the sun but then, further on, I could see through gaps in the trees and bushes, this magnificent stretch of water, perhaps one mile long with steep, green fields rising up from its further shore. About a mile beyond the lake, I decided to turn back. The walking had done me good and I felt great. Hardly a vehicle had passed me, going in either direction, since setting out that morning, so I was surprised when a black car, a Volkswagen Beetle, drew up beside me.

Are you going to Dunmore? someone asked.

I answered, Yes! and a woman moved out from the front passenger seat and into the back, to make way for me. This was Mary McGrath and her husband, Tommy, was driving.

Mary said, We saw you on the road and you looked like a fisherman heading for Dunmore, so we had better pick you up.

Tommy explained that he had been out in his punt, mackerel fishing, that morning and had got a hook in his finger. He said, It was a real bad one and I had to go to Ardkeen Hospital to have the hook removed.

He steered the car with his right hand while he held his heavily bandaged left hand up for my inspection. We had a good old chat on the way and I told them of my plan to leave early in the morning and head west. Tommy said I might do better to stay in Dunmore but I explained the arrangement I had made with Bord Iascaigh Mhara (BIM), to base myself in Goleen in West Cork.

When we reached the village, I went and looked over the wall at the harbour and at the sea beyond. The fog had gone and looking east, I saw the low rocky peninsular of Hook Head with its lighthouse about three miles distant. I was lucky that I had somehow managed to avoid hitting that in the fog! The dock below me, which had been so quiet and peaceful in the early morning, was now bustling with activity. Cranes, lorries and dumper-trucks were moving great loads of rock. The noise made by the machinery and the pneumatic drills was amazing and the seawater was stained a bright red colour from disturbed mud.

That evening, when the work had ceased, I met Dick Murphy on the pier. He was sitting on a bollard and wore dark blue overalls and a white straw hat. He greeted me with a friendly smile and introduced himself adding, I’m the Oil Man.

When I said that we would be sailing west in the morning, he wouldn’t hear of it. Where d’ya say ye’re going? he asked. When I told him we were going to Goleen, he said, Oh that won’t do at all! You’d be better off staying here. He looked around, as if to make sure nobody was listening and then said in a hushed voice, "Maybe I shouldn’t be telling you this, but the Agnes Palmer landed six hundred pounds’ worth of lobsters last week."

I said I had to agree with him. It was a truly amazing sum of money for one week’s fishing. Dick suddenly asked me if I wanted to cash a cheque. This took me by surprise but I said yes, because I had been wondering where I could find a bank. We walked quickly up the hill. I reckoned Dick was in his fifties, he was very lively and laughed easily.

Here we are, he said, leading the way into Power’s Bar. Dick introduced me to Billy Butcher Power.

Dick said, This man has come over from Cornwall and he wants to cash a cheque.

Billy had been cutting up a carcase in the little room next to the bar. He lay down his meat-saw, wiped his hands and stepped into the bar to meet me. We shook hands and he smiled as if he was greeting an old friend.

How much for? Billy asked.

Er, would ten pounds be okay? I asked timidly.

Oh sure, he said, taking an Irish ten-pound note from the till and handing it to me.

I took out my Newquay Bank cheque book and I asked Billy whose name I should make the cheque out to.

Billy said,