This poem looks back at what working life was like for one of the thousands of casual labourers who worked at the Dublin docks in the mid-twentieth century. The foreman, or Stevedore, allocated work to men daily. Those labourers would often be left…

Gary Brown's poem is an elegy for all the people who took the boat out of Dublin and crossed the Irish Sea for various reasons. Some of them left their homes, never to return; others did, but in altered circumstances. This poem speaks of hope and…

The wives and families of dockers had to face deprivations that often went unnoticed or unreported. Because of the dangerous nature of work in and around the docklands areas, work accidents where very common. Almost on a daily basis, men were…

Haunted hallways, and tenement stairsAnd little old women on knees saying prayersWhile kids play skipping and dance all round, all take place in the heart of townAnd women with scrubbing-boards wash and toil, in old back yards beneath blue…

Gareth Huws sat down with Ports, Past and Present and shared the story of Margaret, Lady Stanley (neé Owen), the last heiress of the Owen family, an old local dynasty who by the mid-eighteenth century had lost much of their political influence and…

Gareth Huws sat down with Ports, Past and Present and discussed the significant changes to the town of Holyhead in the shape of its buildings and infrastructure, but also with the influx of new workers from the more rural areas of Anglesey and their…

Gareth Huws sat down with Ports, Past and Present and shared the story of a fascinating daily ritual that carried on for nearly a century: the conveyance of a single watch travelling back and forth between Dublin and London via Holyhead.

Gareth Huws sat down with Ports, Past and Present and discussed Holyhead's international connections at the end of the nineteenth century, which even included the establishment of a Portuguese consulate, and later developments which changed the port…

Gareth Huws sat down with Ports, Past and Present and shared the story how he and a friend found first employment in the mess and the galley on one of the Holyhead mail ships. It turns out that sometimes it is a good thing to be in a mess.

Gareth Huws sat down with Ports, Past and Present to talk about the history of the breakwater quarry at the foot of Holyhead Mountain and the day the town celebrated Queen Victoria's visit with a mighty explosion.