The St. Patrick was the only ferry still sailing between Ireland and Wales during World War Two. The others, the St. David and the St. Andrew, had been requisitioned as hospital ships serving the European front. The St. Patrick made a regular daily…

Round and smooth, frail but strong. I was blown once, made of molten sand from the very beach where I lay forgotten until she found me. “Oh look, what is it, Hugh? Isn’t it lovely? Can we keep it as a memory of our time here?” Forgotten now the…

Margaret Todd from Goodwick sat down with Ports, Past and Present to talk about her former work as stewardess on board the ferries linking Fishguard and Rosslare. She remembers her duties as stewardess, her colleagues and meeting her future husband…

Fishguard is a coastal town in north Pembrokeshire, overlooking Cardigan Bay. Its name in Welsh, Abergwaun, reflects its position at the mouth of the Gwaun river; its name in English derives from the Old Norse Fiskigarðr – ‘fish catching enclosure’…

A cold dark night in December 1920 saw the most celebrated of the Fishguard’s many lifeboat rescues. The boat in question was Charterhouse, funded by the school of that name and presented to the RNLI station in 1908. The boat was built for rough…

Virginia Woolf travelled widely in Britain and Europe throughout her life, but visited Ireland only once. On 27 April 1934, she sailed out from Fishguard to Cork for a motoring tour with her husband Leonard, visiting the novelist Elizabeth Bowen at…

To celebrate the 100th anniversary of the first flight from Britain to Ireland by Denys Corbett Wilson in April 1912, many activities were planned in Fishguard and Enniscorthy for the weekend of 20 to 22 April, 2012 including exhibitions, the…

Seventy years ago, a young woman from Lismore County Waterford set out with her bicycle on her first trip out of Ireland alone. The trip would take her to England, a ‘Pagan land’ something that did not go unnoticed by her neighbours some of whom…

In 1912 'aeroplaning', as it was then known, was in its infancy. Owning an aeroplane was something that only the rich could indulge in. But indulge in it they did. One of these early aeroplane pioneers was Denys Corbett Wilson. An Anglo-Irishman,…

It is thought that Fishguard was named from the Old Norse Fiskigarðr,a ‘fish catching enclosure’. What remains here today is very unlikely to date back that far but we know the style of low-walled hook-shaped trap is an ancient one. Remains of…