April 2019 Calendar photo

Our April photo from our 2019 Calendar

Captain Carroll and his son David

This photo was taken in 1952 near the Dunmore East Light lighthouse. I was five years old.   (Probably watching a dinghy race or perhaps waiting for the Irish Lights tender to arrive?). Photographer was Fred Fennell who was a  well-known photographer who sadly went missing on a coast walk to Portally a year or two later..

My father was Captain Desmond Carroll, Harbour Master from 1947 - 1969. He succeeded Major Wilfred Lloyd who retired in 1947.  My father was from Dun Laoghaire and had gone to sea with Elder Dempster Line from Liverpool in 1920s. He later served in the Marine Service from 1939 to1946. (The Marine Service was the name for Irish Navy during that Emergency period). With the Marine Service he was involved in mine-laying of Waterford Harbour between Ballyhack and Passage during that time. He was brother to J.S. (Stan) Carroll, who was City Engineer in Waterford (late 1940s to 1970s) and who is buried in Killea cemetery.                                                           . 

I have lived since 1969 in Dublin and have maintained a lifelong interest in maritime matters, particularly those pertaining to Waterford Harbour and Dunmore East.

Andrew Doherty of “Waterford harbour tide & tales” (a weekly blog page each Friday) has invited myself on several occasions to contribute blogs. These have mainly been recollections about Dunmore East Harbour in the 1950s and 1960s.

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