Residents of Holyhead fondly remember Pollecoff’s department and drapery store for its ‘elegance and quality’. Its owner, Solomon Polliakoff, was born in Russia in 1867. He emigrated to the United Kingdom to escape persecution and to better himself…

The newly-created Boathouse Hotel is the first social enterprise Eco-Hotel in North Wales with a social and environmental mission. Nestled in a dip on Newry Beach Promenade, the Boathouse Hotel boasts a perfect location on the Anglesey Coastal Path…

As my name suggests, I have crossed the Irish Sea many times. I first went to Ireland to pursue archaeology in 1960 when I was researching the North Wales megalithic tombs and needed to see the Irish ones as well. My memory of that first visit to…

In 1783, Carl Gottlob Küttner (1755-1805) travelled via Holyhead to Dublin for his new post as house teacher and travel companion in the household of George Beresford (1735–1800), the second Earl of Tyrone. Originally from the Electorate of Saxony,…

The day for which Holyhead had so anxiously prepared had finally arrived: newly-crowned King George IV (1820-1830) was making his first visit to Holyhead as a stop-off in his inaugural grand tour. In the early evening hours of Monday, August 6,…

In the decade 1912-1923, continuous waves of events impacted Irish society, including the 1913 Lockout, the First World War, the 1916 Easter Rising, the Spanish flu, the War of Independence, Anglo-Irish treaty, partition, Civil War and finally the…

Travel is often eventful and never without risks. One hundred years ago the mail boat and train service between Dublin and London Euston was the critical travel infrastructure supporting the Anglo-Irish treaty negotiations. On the morning of 3rd…

Billy lived in Holyhead in the nineteenth century. He was a young man affected by paraplegia in a time when society still operated under conventional notions of ‘perfection,’ and of the many important stories presented in the invaluable Holyhead:…

History has played out on the route between Dublin and London, and the Port of Holyhead was often the critically timed step across the Irish Sea. Over an intense three-month period one hundred years ago, Irish delegations and secret documents…

Cynefin, cynefinoedd habitat, accustomed, conversant, familiar, intimate Hiraeth grief, homesickness, longing, nostalgia, wistfulness -Geiriadur Prifysgol Bangor University Cynefin. Roots. Familiarity. The pull that breeds Hiraeth…