Waterford City

THE SHOWBOAT PUB IN WATERFORD

February 28, 2023 by infomatique

THE GLEN – PENROSE LANE

This photograph dates from my 2016 visit to the city and at the time this pub did not really catch my attention however I photographed it again in 2021 and it was still unoccupied and today I checked on Google Maps and it still appears to be unoccupied but of course Google might be out off date.

Penrose Lane was known locally as Dennys Lane and it was the scene of the 1896-67 Pig strike. Pig traders/buyers based in the Ballybricken area had a local monopoly on buying from farmers in order to supply local bacon producers but the factories began to buy direct from the producers.

By the middle of the 19th Century, around 75% of the Irish pork products imported into London were coming from Waterford. The City and its surrounds were at that point huge manufacturers of sausages and bacon, largely due to the Denny’s factory, a family business passed from generation to generation. Denny’s still exists today but the factory in Waterford shut in March 1972 .

As already mentioned there is a lot of unoccupied property or derelict sites in Waterford and the more I visit the more that I have become aware of. In October 2016 it was reported that the Showboat had been sold and that it would reopen in 2017.

In September 2019 local publications reported that Waterford City & County Council was set to act ‘aggressively’ on Waterford’s well-known vacant pub sites. The specifically mentioned The Showboat and the Halfway House and Grand Hotel Tramore sites.

ABOUT A GIRL BY KEMP MAY 2015

February 28, 2023 by infomatique

WATERFORD WALLS PROJECT AT NEWGATE STREET IN WATERFORD PHOTOGRAPHED IN 2016

[Update 28 February 2023] I checked Google Maps and the building in my photographs has been demolished []

According to a local there is a lot of graffiti in Waterford because there is a huge amount of derelict property, I got the impression that he was not impressed by the murals throughout the city.

This was difficult to photograph as I was very much constrained by the fact that I was using a 90mm lens when I photographed this artwork in May 2016.

KEMP is a Dublin based stencil artist. He is the curator and originator of the OUTVASION project. He has held solo exhibitions in NewYork (2012), Waterford (2012) and Dublin (2013). Working mainly on portrait based pieces he has recently began to mix these with backgrounds of urban sprawl.The theme of his work varies but the thought process behind it stays the same, to bring out the beautiful in both the mundane and the extraordinary.

Newgate street extends westwards from the Applemarket, connects with John Street and Michael Street, with Newgate Street and John’s Lane. It was part of the new gate development undertaken in the late 15th century and which provided an additional gateway into the Anglo-Norman city.

FREDERICK DOUGLASS WAS HERE 9 OCTOBER 1845

February 27, 2023 by infomatique

FAMOUS ABOLITIONIST

When I photographed this plaque back in May 2016 I was unaware of Frederick Douglass but for various reasons I encountered his name many times since but mainly because he was in Ireland at the beginning of the 1845 Famine.

In October 2013 Mayor of Waterford John Cummins unveiled the plaque on the facade of Waterford City Hall to commemorate the address by Douglass, a former slave who was one of the leading abolitionists of his day and an influence on the thinking of US president Abraham Lincoln.

Note: The Irish Potato Famine, also known as the Great Hunger, began in 1845 when a mold [mould] known as Phytophthora infestans (or P. infestans) caused a destructive plant disease that spread rapidly throughout Ireland. The infestation ruined up to one-half of the potato crop that year, and about three-quarters of the crop over the next seven years.

Douglass’s friends and mentors feared that publicity at home would draw the attention of his ex-owner, Hugh Auld, who might try to get his “property” back. They encouraged Douglass to tour Ireland, as many former enslaved people had done. Douglass set sail on the Cambria for Liverpool, England, on August 16, 1845. He traveled in Ireland as the Great Famine was beginning.

Frederick Douglass (born Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey, c. February 1817 or 1818 – February 20, 1895) was an American social reformer, abolitionist, orator, writer, and statesman. After escaping from slavery in Maryland, he became a national leader of the abolitionist movement in Massachusetts and New York, becoming famous for his oratory and incisive antislavery writings. Accordingly, he was described by abolitionists in his time as a living counterexample to enslavers’ arguments that enslaved people lacked the intellectual capacity to function as independent American citizens. Northerners at the time found it hard to believe that such a great orator had once been enslaved. It was in response to this disbelief that Douglass wrote his first autobiography.

Frederick Augustus Washington Bailey was born enslaved on the Eastern Shore of the Chesapeake Bay in Talbot County, Maryland. The plantation was between Hillsboro and Cordova; his birthplace was likely his grandmother’s cabin east of Tappers Corner, and west of Tuckahoe Creek. In his first autobiography, Douglass stated: “I have no accurate knowledge of my age, never having seen any authentic record containing it.” In successive autobiographies, he gave more precise estimates of when he was born, his final estimate being 1817. However, based on the extant records of Douglass’s former owner, Aaron Anthony, historian Dickson J. Preston determined that Douglass was born in February 1818. Though the exact date of his birth is unknown, he chose to celebrate February 14 as his birthday, remembering that his mother called him her “Little Valentine.”

FREDERICK DOUGLASS WAS HERE 9 OCTOBER 1845

STREET ART BY ILJIN

February 26, 2023 by infomatique

O’CONNELL STREET IN WATERFORD CITY

I am not sure when I took these photographs but they date from 2016 or earlier. My uncertainty is due to the fact that the original RAW files were damaged.

I first came across work by this artist in Waterford and have photographed more of their work since then.

According to Google Maps the artwork is still to be seen on O’Connell Street and it is in good condition.

Contact Artist: https://www.behance.net/iljin

WATERFORD 27 MAY 2016 MERCHANTS QUAY AREA

February 26, 2023 by infomatique

PUBLISHED 26 FEBRUARY 2023

For various reasons I had to cancel my 2022 visit to Waterford and unfortunately I cannot afford to visit Waterford this year and even if I had the money and was willing to pay the asking prices there are no rooms available at dates that suit me.

The city is situated at the head of Waterford Harbour. The city motto Urbs Intacta Manet Waterfordia (“Waterford remains the untaken city”) was granted by King Henry VII of England in 1497 after Waterford refused to recognise the claims of the pretenders Lambert Simnel and Perkin Warbeck to the English throne. Waterford was subjected to two sieges in 1649 and 1650, during the Cromwellian conquest of Ireland. It withstood the first siege but surrendered during the second siege to Henry Ireton on 6 August 1650.

Reginald’s Tower is the oldest urban civic building in Ireland, and the oldest monument to retain its Viking name. To this day, it remains Waterford’s most recognisable landmark. It is believed to be the first building in Ireland to use mortar. The River Suir, which flows through Waterford City, has provided a basis for the city’s long maritime history. The place downriver from Waterford where the Nore and the Barrow join the River Suir is known in Irish as Cumar na dTrí Uisce (“The confluence of the three waters”). Waterford Port has been one of Ireland’s major ports for over a millennium. In the 19th century, shipbuilding was a major industry. The owners of the Neptune Shipyard, the Malcomson family, built and operated the largest fleet of iron steamers in the world between the mid-1850s and the late 1860s, including five trans-Atlantic passenger liners.