Rural Electrification

“This is Happiness”

There are a thousand ways to tell a story. I thought I had written up much of what’s to know about the coming of Electricity to the rural areas of Ireland in this series (click the link). However, I now realise I have missed a dimension in this recounting: I haven’t included the direct experience of the populations whose lives were upturned by this state-imposed revolution. I haven’t written about that – but someone else has!!

Our very good friend Amanda – she of the holy wells – presented me with this book (and not just because it features a hare on its cover!) . . . This is a brilliantly written novel that concerns itself with the detailed lives of a small close-knit community – Faha – in County Clare, at the time of the heralding, and then the arrival of, electricity. The ‘voice’ of the book is a 78 year-old man remembering growing up and coming-of-age in the 1940s and 50s, and experiencing first-hand the changes that electricity brought to the order of things in rural Ireland. In fact the author – Niall Williams – was born in 1958, towards the end of that period, and has used his writer’s skills to invoke the colour and tenor of the times and, of course, the inevitable suspicions, consternations and conservatism that were inherent in a community and lifestyle which had changed very little over generations and many decades.

Rosses Point Village, Co Sligo: the poles arrive, 1940 (ESB Archives, which has been an invaluable source in my own search for information on the events of the time)

The book – This is Happiness – is outstanding. I consumed it eagerly, and I’m giving you a few extracts to whet your appetites. I thoroughly recommend that you read it, even if you think your interest in Ireland’s rural electrification is but brief. It’s also a story about people’s personal lives, of course, and all the characters are beautifully painted and completely credible. In terms of reality, my feelings are that Niall Williams has been scrupulous in his research, and deserves the accolade of having creatively told an absolutely true piece of social history through his particular medium of narrative romance.

Before and After ESB Archives

Firstly, consider how ‘The Electricity’ had to be taken across rural Ireland: a landscape that was seldom accommodating – using poles and wires. Here is Niall Williams’ account of how the poles were purchased – all this can be verified:

. . . The electricity poles, it turned out, would not be Irish. Irish forests, we had learned in school, were felled to make Lord Nelson’s fleet and were now fathoms deep with the rest of the Admiralty. Instead, after extensive research, which in those days meant sending a man, the Board learned that the best place to purchase the poles was the country of Finland. To Finland they dispatched a forester, Dermot Mangan. Mangan had never been north of Dundalk. He tramped through the snow directly to the Helsinki offices of Mr Onni Salovarra, stood melting alarmingly beside the ferocious stove and said he was there to negotiate for poles on behalf of the Irish State.

Mr Salovarra thought him a novelty. He considered the comedy of the clothes the Irish thought adequate to the Finnish winter. The shoes, the shoes were little more than cardboard, a detail that inexplicably moved him, conjuring a country poor and valiantly endeavouring to overcome its circumstances. Still, business was business. Like all who had to outwit savage climate, Mr Salovarra eschewed sentiment and offered an inflated price of £4 a pole.

Mangan furrowed his brows and melted some more. He was not a businessman, his prime negotiation was with saws, but he had been told to drive for £3 and 10 shillings per pole, and if things did not progress, the Department Secretary had told him, drop in a mention of Norway, they won’t like that.

Mangan sat down. He said he was sorry he had travelled so far in vain. He said he had been hoping to see the glory of the Finnish forests, which he believed the finest in the world, but now he would have to travel on to Norway.

Mr Salovarra said £3 and 10 shillings per pole.

Mangan said he would send word back to the Government and asked for the nearest telegram office.

Right here is the only one, said Mr Salovarra and smiled. He had the kind of teeth that suggested the tearing of fish-flesh.

Mangan wrote up the words of the telegram. Please send this, he said, and passed the wording across the desk to Mr Salovarra. The message was written in Irish.

Mangan crossed the frozen street and into the tropic of a wooden hotel where three stoves were kept going and the floor of the lobby wore a permanent stain of male thaw. His room was spartan but it was overhead Reception and the heat fairly cooked him. The floorboards up there been shrinking and creaked like the bones of old men, but they dried his shoes in jig-time. In the same jig-time the stitching of them gave up the ghost and you could hear the tiny snaps of the cobbler’s thread as the soles came loose. The fish he ate for dinner was larger than the plate. He had no idea what kind it was, but with enough salt you could eat timber was Mangan’s thought.

He went back to Mr Salovarra the next day and received the telegram of the Government’s response, which was also written in Irish. Translated, it read: Delighted with offer. Accept on behalf of State.

Mangan looked across at Mr Salovarra whose teeth were smiling. ‘Offer refused,’ he said.

Mr Salovarra could not believe it.

‘Look here,’ said Mangan, and read aloud the impenetrably harsh sounds of the Irish. He finished with a flourish the sign-off, An tUasal O Dála.

Mr Salovarra asked him what An tUasal meant and Mangan explained that in Irish we remembered we were noblemen and greeted ourselves as such.


Mr Salovarra said £3 a pole.

In all, ten telegrams went back and forth from Helsinki to Dublin, all of them in Irish, and, because in Irish and incapable of being translated in Finland, they were able to take on whatever degree of intransigence Mangan thought apt. Ultimately, because of the unnegotiable severity of the Gaelic, Mr Salovarra was bargained down to £2 a pole, and on that the two men shook.

But that was not the end of it. Now fearful that their inexperience might be taken advantage of, the Electricity Board insisted that each individual pole be inspected, calipered and approved by Mangan himself before being shipped to Ireland.

Mangan told Mr Salovarra he would have to stay in Finland for some months. He was to visit the northern forests in person.

Mr Salovarra lifted onto his desk the gift of a pair of fleece-lined lace-up boots and made a small respectful bow. An tUasal, he said.

Dermot Mangan travelled by sleigh to the snowbound forests of Finland. In the deep woods was a preternatural silence and the sense of the beginnings of time, and Mangan was not surprised to learn of the Finnish epic poetry of the Kalevala in which the earth is created from pieces of duck egg, and the first man, whose name is not Adam but Väinämöinen, starts by bringing trees to barren ground.

Mangan took to the woods. They were his dream habitat. He wore furs, Mr Salovarra’s boots, and went from pole to pole and made his mark, selecting the ones that in time would criss-cross the green spaces of Ireland. He became a story, and that story was well known by the electric crews that came in to Faha and told and retold it with greater or lesser detail. But the fact is that for the next 30 years, May to December, there was always a ship bringing poles from Finland to port depots in Dublin, Cork or Limerick. In the interest of story, sometimes you could do no worse than go out into the country, find one of those quiet roads where time is dissolved by rain, look out across ghost fields that were once farmed, and you’ll see still see some of those poles An tUasal Mangan first laid a frozen hand on in the forests of Finland . . .

Niall Williams – This is Happiness
One of the largest consignments of poles from Finland: the MV Make navigates the Shannon Estuary c1950 ESB Archives

One million poles were erected in Ireland, and 50,000 miles of electric cable were strung from them. Here’s the account from the book of one pole’s progress:

When we came into Quirke’s there was a quorum in shirtsleeves gathered around a fresh hole in the front field there. Quirke’s was mostly stones and the pole was on the ground while the men assessed whether enough stones had come out to make a third attempt to stand it. When Christy and I came into the avenue our arrival seemed propitious and we did the thing all men do, we came over for a look into the hole, nodding the tight-lipped nods that masqueraded as expertise. Two long lines of rope ran across the grass to a jittery grey horse waiting with Quirke. The third attempt was decided by a smack of the ganger’s hands. Christy threw off his jacket and, because there are coded imperatives in the company of men, I did the same, we stood in to raise the pole.

With a sharp hup hup from Quirke and a worry from his rod of osier the horse took the tension. Head down and hands out on the sticky sweat-melt of the creosote, I saw nothing and heard only the grunts of effort and the come on come on of the ganger, the now now, men as the shaft of timber sank into the hole and then began to rise like a giant’s needle into the sun. It was wonderful. I felt a surge of joy, the simple, original and absolute thrill of a physical victory over the ardours of the terrain, a pulse so quick as to pass instantly in through the arms of each man, into the blood and brain the same moment with the pole triangled now at nine o’clock, now ten, Come on come on, effort increasing beyond the point when no increase seemed possible and yet was found.

And because of that surge, because I was given over completely to the thrust of a communal triumph I had never experienced before, I didn’t hear the rope snap…

Niall Williams – This is Happiness
From the earliest days – 1946 ESB Archives

Niall Williams vividly recreates a gathering in Faha when the people of the village were summoned to a demonstration of what the benefits of ‘The Electricity’ might herald:

. . . One afternoon the stools and chairs were brought in from the garden and set around the kitchen because a summit of the neighbours had been called. Moylan, a salesman from the electricity company, was doing the rounds. Because it had the telephone and the air of unofficial post office, because it was already deemed connected, my grandparents’ house was chosen for the demonstration of what the future was bringing.

The meeting had been called for three in the afternoon. Moylan was a nine-to-five man, three was when he was at his peak, and country people have no work that couldn’t be left aside for something as essential as electricity, was his position. A Limerick baritone with a magnificent sweep of black hair, he arrived in the yard in the van. Sonny, help me carry these in, was his greeting. When he saw the smallness of the kitchen – the slope of the floor doubling the cramped illusion – he had to overcome the familiar fall of his heart that this was a lesser stage for his talents, and not let it impact upon his performance.

‘Where is everybody?’ He asked Doady.

‘Everybody is coming,’ she said.

Into the kitchen on a handcart Moylan hefted a selection of machines whose existence to that point had been notional. Many were white and of such a gleaming newness it seemed nothing in the parish was as white as had previously been thought. All had a black wire coming out the back with a three-pin plug that looked both imperative and nakedly masculine, as though in urgent need of finding a three-holed female. Moylan laboured to get the washing machine in and around the turning of the front door whose jamb was predicated on human dimensions. Doady said it was a shame Ganga wasn’t there to help. The turf needed turning, he’d announced abruptly that morning, and headed with Joe (the dog) to the bog.

In clusters of shyness, the neighbours began arriving.

Moylan had already given a performance in the village, and the reviews were good. ‘Nice little house you have,’ he said to Doady, the sweat shining off him standing in front of the twelve-foot hearth where small sods were sighing a complacent smoke unaware that their time was running out.

The centre of the room was taken with the machines and the neighbours came in around them muted and respectful the way they did when there was a body laid out. They settled into the chairs, onto the stools and benches, and let their eyes do the talking for a while. Mostly it was the women. Those who were not eyeing the electrical equipment were taken by Moylan’s shoes, which were two-toned, extra-terrestrial, and with an air of Hucklebuck. Maybe the Shimmy Shake too.

While the practical business of bringing the electricity to the parish was almost exclusively the domain of men, inside the houses the jurisdiction over electrical equipment, kettles, cookers, hairdryers and washing machines, was conceded to women. Only two men came to the summit. First, because it was taking place in the kitchen in daytime, and second, because men refused to be summoned, it outraged their dignity, and nothing in the known world had yet required that absolute submission accept Christ, and even with Him it was leeway. The two men were Bat from back the road who came in, God bless all, with cap low and eyes down, and Mossie O Keefe who was the Job of Faha . . . O Keefe’s mother died when the cart turned over on her, his father went into the bottle, he himself married the woman in love with his brother, one of his sons went in a threshing machine, the other drowned in a ditch.

There were others, the room filled and the sunlight blocked at the window, but Moylan couldn’t wait forever. Emboldened by the air of event, and with the fattened authority of farmyard matrons, three hens came inside the open front door, nestling down in a bath of sunshine to watch. Neither in nor out, I was perched on the back step.

To give Moylan his due, he had his routine down pat, Now I want you first to look at this, a combination of science and circus in an actor’s boom, This, this machine, will do all the work. It will wash your clothes for you. He lifted the lid and drew out a white towel, as though the washing and drying had happened in the time it took him to say the sentence and here was the proof. He had devised this touch himself and was proud of it. It was the only proof possible without electricity and had the added boon of making it seem as if he himself was the current or at least its conductor. Further to this, ten seconds into his pitch a film of sweat was glistening on him, lending him a shine which he didn’t dab away, believing it translated as electric excitement and disguised the actual truth, that he was being cooked by the fire.

His audience was rapt by the important and foreign sounds of spec and kilowatt in that 200-year-old house, and by touch and look Moylan kept relaying the words to the magic of the machines that sat mute but powerful like idols . . .

Niall Williams – This is Happiness
An early shop selling electric appliances – Blackwater, Co Waterford, 1955 ESB Archives

I have set out these extracts from what is a good-sized novel. Hopefully they will whet your appetite and make you seek out the book: it’s a good read. Finally, I’m taking a page which is close to the end of the story. And this isn’t just about electricity – it’s speaking of a vanished part of Ireland’s rural history:

. . . My grandparents never took the electricity. They didn’t act as though there was a lack. They carried on as they were, which is the prayer of most people. They lived in that house until they were carried out of it, one after the other. Because the twelve sons in the corners of the world couldn’t reach a verdict, the house was left to itself. The thatch started sagging in two places like consternated eyebrows, brambles overtook the potato ridges and came up the garden, and soon enough in under the front door. Soon, you couldn’t see the house from the road. Soon, too, the bits of hedging Doady had stuck into the ditch to camouflage the broken Milk of Magnesia bottles grew to twelve feet and fell over and grew along the ground then, marrying thorn bushes and nettles and making of the whole a miry jungle. When the roof fell in the crows that were in the chimney came down to see the songbirds sitting in Ganga’s chair eating Old Moore’s and that way becoming eternal. When grown a man, one of the Kellys took out the kitchen flagstones for a cabin he was making. He took out the stone lintel over the fireplace after, and a year later came back for half the gable when he needed good building stones for a wall.

In time, as with all modest places of few votes, Government would be looking the other way when its policies closed Faha’s post office, barracks, primary school, surgery, chemist, and lastly the pubs.

In time, the windmills would be coming. Gairdíen na scoile and Páirc na mónaigh would be bulldozed to straighten the bends in the road to let the turbines pass. Any trees in the way would be taken down. Two- and three-hundred-year-old stone walls would be pushed aside, the councillors, who had never been there, adjudging them in the way of the future.

By that time, my grandparents’ house would be another of those tumbledown triangles of mossy masonry you see everywhere in the western countryside, the life that was in them once all but escaping imagination . . .

Niall Williams – This is Happiness
Switching-on ceremony Kilsaran, Co Louth 29 January 1952 – the 55,000th consumer! ESB Archives

A big thank you to Amanda Clarke for sending this book my way!

This is Happiness by Niall Williams, published by Bloomsbury 2019

Microgeneration – Rural Electrification 2023

That’s our new car, sitting in Ballydehob a day or two ago. It’s given me the chance to revisit my posts about the history of Rural Electrification in Ireland – and to bring the subject right up to date! The word Microgeneration is new to my vocabulary. Here’s where I first saw it:

What that means is that our supplier – Electric Ireland – is paying us! We are contributing to electricity generation here in West Cork because we have tapped in to the sunshine!

Since we collected our Ora Funky Cat from Blackwater Motors in Cork, two weeks ago, all our fuel costs have been free! As you can see from the display on our car charger, every watt is coming from solar gain, and feeding into the Funky Cat’s battery. If we get the timing right, we will never have to pay fuel costs again, unless we travel away from home.

That’s our Zappi car charger, above. We made the decision to install photovoltaic (PV) panels on the roof of our house. We face south – looking out over Roaringwater Bay – in a location that’s ideal for harvesting solar energy.

Our house from the fields below: you can see a few stages of rural electrification in this picture, conventional supply posts and wires, and the new panels on our roof. (Below) Fergus and Kevin are well on with the installation:

It’s been well worth the disruption, which was actually shortlived – and everyone who worked on it was cheerful. Why wouldn’t they be? They were bringing the most up-to-date electric technology to our doorstep. We are now being credited for anything we generate that goes into the grid (that’s the default mode). But we are going to use our own power as much as possible in Nead an Iolair. We have had a battery fitted, and a diverter which powers another circuit if there’s anything to spare once we’ve charged the car.

We are fortunate in that our house has extensive south-facing roof slopes – ideal for the installation of eighteen PV panels (above). Properties which don’t have roofs facing the right way can consider panels mounted on freestanding frames. Here’s one set up by neighbours of ours:

The same neighbours have also been tapping into wind energy for many years (above). They are significant contributors to ‘rural electrification’ here in West Cork!

There’s a phone app for everything! Mine is telling me how our system is performing. It’s Saturday afternoon and the day is relatively dull. There is no sun shining on the panels, but the solar gain from the overcast sky is still generating (or ‘microgenerating’ as the ESB would have it). The battery in the system (on the left) is full, the car (bottom image) is unplugged. The PV (centre) is pushing 5.1kW into the grid! No wonder our ‘house’ is smiling.

Finally, this week – in our electric car – we visited the impressive re-erected Gorteanish stone circle near Ahakista on the Sheep’s Head. I wonder: could this have been a forward-looking experiment by Bronze Age West Cork dwellers into harvesting solar energy?

Sheep’s Head Stone Circle Revived!

Thinking of a carbon emission reduced future yourself? It would be worth speaking to our contractor: https://www.toolenpv.ie/

And, if you like the look of the Funky Cat, don’t forget to connect with Blackwater Motors, our Cork dealer. Incidentally, if you are wondering about the name, Great Wall Motors (GWM) is one of the largest car manufacturers in China, where cats are considered lucky: all GWM Ora products have ‘Cat’ in the name. Examples – Good Cat, Ballet Cat, Lighting Cat, Grand Cat… And Funky, of course!

Further information on the Electrification of Ireland can be found in these posts:

Night’s Candles are Burnt Out

Electrifying West Cork

Rural Electrification – Process and Effect

The Electrification of Ireland – A Medieval Diversion

Ardnacrusha

The Electrification of Ireland – A Medieval Diversion

In my recent posts I have set out a brief history of how the new State became electrified – and how this affected the urban and rural ways of life in Ireland. An important part of the story was the building of the hydro electric power station at Ardnacrusha, on the River Shannon, between 1925 and 1929. That’s the original control room, above, unaltered since construction – there’s not a screen in sight! Most of the works of the station are now handled elsewhere using screens and keyboards rather than dials and switches. This site became the nerve centre for the electrification of Ireland and the National Grid was established in tandem with the project.

This selfie shows Finola and I on a visit to Ardnacrusha last week. (If you want to go yourself you have to book in advance). We had a great time! And I’ll be reporting back on that trip in due course. But first I want to take you back in time – more than a thousand years . . .

Here’s the River Shannon today, just north of the power station. There’s a big head of water there, and the river had to be dammed and flooded to maximise the feed to the turbines. The significantly raised water level had consequences.

The aerial view, above, shows the river today with its elevated water level. In the pic you can see the ‘Site of Friar’s Island’ indicated: before 1930 there was an island there, on which were some noted relics, including the Oratory of St Molua of Kyle (also known as St Lua), who died in the year 608. His feast is celebrated on August 4th. It’s said that crowds used to assemble there on that day, most of them wading across the water to get to the island. This description of the saint is from the Schools Folklore Collection (informant Tom Seymour, aged 60, Cloncully Co Laois):

. . . We don’t know where he belongs. Some say he belongs to Killaloe. He had his monastery in Kyle. Near the monastery he had a big stone where he used to pray. There are two big holes where he laid his elbows, and two more where the tears fell. In Ballaghmore there is a trough laid up on a stone. It is always half-full of St Molua’s water. The hottest day in the summer the well is always half-full of water. When he died the people of Killaloe wanted to bury him in Killaloe and the people of Kyle wanted to bury him in Kyle. They made two coffins, one went to Kyle and the other to Killaloe. He had another monastery in Offaly . . .

Schools Folklore Collection

In this extract from the early OS 6″ map (above) you can see that the island was quite substantial. The pilgrimage involved visiting a holy well and St Lua’s Oratory. The small church was by tradition built by the saint, although it seems likely to date from the ninth or tenth centuries.

St Lua’s Oratory – Eighteenth Century water colour – Royal Irish Academy. The figures are somewhat out of scale. Below is a photograph of the Romanesque structure taken on the island in the 1920s.

. . . The nave walls are constructed with uncoursed cyclopean sandstone masonry while the chancel walls are constructed with roughly squared stones of smaller size. The chancel has a single-light round-headed E window with stepped sill-stone and unusual flat-headed doorway in the S wall. The round-headed chancel arch has curious jamb-stones which are not flush with the chancel arch and project inwards. The triangular-shaped chancel roof is bonded with lime mortar and is well preserved. The nave walls are poorly preserved and only survive several courses high with a trabeate doorway in the W wall. Excavations at Friar’s Island prior to the removal of the church revealed that the church was constructed on a stone platform enclosed by a possible cashel with a revetment wall of unknown purpose. A second stone platform (dims. 22ft (6.71m) N-S; 50ft (15.25m) E-W) was located to the S of the church and eleven skeletons were uncovered under or close to the foundations of the N wall of the church (Macalister 1929, 16-24) . . .

National Monuments Service description

As the plan to establish the new power station progressed, it became obvious that the level of the river below Killaloe would have to be raised significantly in order to maximise the water power turning the turbines to be installed: some five meters, in fact. The consequence for Friar’s Island were that it would be flooded, and the Oratory would be lost.

Considerable debate ensued, the main factions being archaeologists, engineers, and the Catholic Church. Politically, the efficient functioning of the new power station was paramount in order to show the State and the world that Ireland was an entity to be reckoned with. At the same time, the archaeologists were keen to project that the independent country recognised and championed its very rich ancient heritage, and would therefore go out of its way to preserve all surviving artefacts. The Catholic Church was anxious to show allegiance to all aspects of progress in the State, while noting that it was also the fundamental root of the unique Irish culture that led to the historical founding of sites such as St Lua’s Oratory. I was fortunate to be given access to a paper by Niamh NicGhabhann of the University of Limerick: Medieval Ireland and the Shannon Hydro-Electric Scheme: reconstructing the past in independent Ireland. Here’s an abstract:

. . . This essay considers the position of Irish medieval buildings in the early years of the twentieth century. Focusing on the treatment of the oratory of St Lua at Killaloe, it examines the ways in which the ruins of the medieval past were used to signify a range of political, religious and cultural ideas and attitudes. The rising water levels following the Shannon Scheme works (begun in 1925) meant that this stone oratory was moved from its original position on Friar’s Island to the grounds of St Flannan’s Roman Catholic Church in 1929. The resulting paper trail reflects the complex processes of decision-making within a civil service in transition as the new Irish Free State calibrated its position with regard to the past and the treatment of medieval ruins throughout the countryside. The case study of St Lua’s oratory is considered here in the context of the nineteenth-century tradition of scholarship on medieval buildings, the development of the idea of a national Irish architecture during this period, and the impact of this tradition on subsequent engagement with the buildings of the medieval past . . .

Niamh NicGhabhann
IrIsh studIes revIew, 2017 vOL 25 NO. 4

Above – a surviving photograph of St Lua’s Oratory being disassembled in 1929. The various debates had produced three alternative solutions to the dilemma of the impending inundation of Friar’s Island:

1 – Allow the island and the ruins to vanish below the flood: by far the cheapest course of action.

2 – Build a new concrete platform (effectively a new ‘island’) above the level of the flood water, and transfer the remains of the building to this.

. . . The RSAI officially responded in support of the second proposed scheme of work, involving the elevation of the building and the construction of a concrete pier. They suggested one amendment to the plan, that a ring of grass be added around the building to give the concrete plinth the appearance of an island. Given that both the RSAI and the OPW were in favour of the second scheme as the most appropriate and cost-effective course of action, the fact that the oratory was eventually moved and transported some distance from the site, however, reflects competing values, as well as several structural problems that emerged in the second scheme as proposed. As works progressed, it became clear that the elevated island site would be eventually undermined by the flow of the river, making this process untenable . . .

Niamh NicGhabhann
IrIsh studIes revIew, 2017 vOL 25 NO. 44

3 – The Scheme that was eventually adopted involved dismantling the Oratory and re-assembling it as faithfully as possible, on a suitable mainland site. Initially the suggested site was on the Clare bank of the Shannon, but the ground conditions were not suitable for a permanent structure.

. . . A further plan for relocation was also progressed, which involved moving the ruin into the town of Killaloe, and locating it beside the later and larger oratory of St. Flannan, and the medieval cathedral of St Flannan. These plans were at quite an advanced stage by mid – 1929, with several drawings and maps produced by Leask’s office for the purpose. However, while the preservation process was certainly hampered by these structural issues, ideological concerns also had a direct impact on the treatment of the oratory . . . The intervention of Bishop Fogarty was also noted on 13 July 1929, when the Limerick Leader reported that “the safeguarding of such a venerable relic of primitive Christian architecture is due to the timely intervention of Dr Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, who put the matter before the Government”. (Limerick Leader, 13 July 1929) . The use of the word “relic” as opposed to “ruin” is significant here, reflecting an interpretation of the site as part of a tradition of faith, rather than of architectural or antiquarian interest . . .

NIAMH NICGHABHANN
IRISH STUDIES REVIEW, 2017 VOL 25 NO. 44

In this photograph of the Oratory as it stands today in the church grounds at Killaloe, it is perhaps worth wryly commenting that we see a true piece of early medieval architecture behind the screen of ‘pseudo’ high crosses. We have a good record of how the remains were dismantled and accurately re-assembled: this was written by the archaeologist H G Leask MRIA in 1930:

. . . In order that the rebuilding should be, as far as was possible, an accurate one, it was necessary to adopt a system of marking the stonework by which the original stones should occupy their original positions when reassemble. The stones being very varied in size and irregular in shape, and laid uncured, no system of numbering such as could easily be applied to squared ashlar was admissible. To the Clerk of Works in charge, Mr C J Dowdall, must be given the credit for the scheme finally decided upon. This consisted in marking with paint of different colours a series of level lines at two feet vertical intervals all round the exterior and interior wall faces. These lines were crossed again by a series of vertical lines at the same intervals but of one distinctive colour for each wall face inside and out. Where the squares formed by this grid of paint enclosed, unmarked, a number of small stones, diagonal lines were added to each square to ensure that every stone showed the same marking. A complete series of elevational photographs of each wall face was taken and careful drawings were also made with the coloured guide lines indicated upon them. On the large plot of ground on the opposite side of the river kindly lent by Major Lefroy, above future water level, timber guide planks were laid down as a frame to each wall and gable face. On the timber frames the coloured guide lines were indicated and the stones when transported were laid down face upwards, in sand, in correct relation with the coloured marks. Each wall, of course, was divided in two vertically along its length and “displayed”. Important quoin, jamb, and arch stones were numbered in colour in regular order. The transport over the Shannon was carried out by means of a specially built barge and a rope stretched from shore to shore, the workmen simply “handing” the boat across by this means. An inclined trackway with truck and winch was erected by Messrs Siemens Bau Union and two small temporary jetties by direct labour. The Most Reverend Dr Fogarty, Bishop of Killaloe, vested a site in the Church enclosure on the summit of the hill in Killaloe town, and the building has been erected there and is now (May, 1930) approaching completion. (Note: the work of re-erection was finally completed in July, 1930) . . .

The Church of St Lua, or Molua, Friar’s Island, Co Tipperary, Near Killaloe
Further Notes – H G Leask
13 May 1930

A couple of afterthoughts to finish off with: a letter from Canon Clancy to Leask, dated 14 October 1930, asked whether a gate could be installed, as it is “liable to be desecrated by boys using it as a urinal, in fact, some boys have already been using it”. And a contemporary cutting from the Nenagh Guardian noted that . . . works cost thousands of pounds are being misused on a “folly” in demolishing St Lua’s Chapel and hiding it in a yard when they could have lifted it above the waters and put a strong light in it that would have illuminated the whole country round, and made it one of the sights of the place . . .

I am grateful to Niamh NicGhabhann for allowing me access to her excellent paper on the tensions surrounding the proposals for the Oratory remains. Further information on the Electrification of Ireland can be found in these posts:

Night’s Candles are Burnt Out

Electrifying West Cork

Rural Electrification – Process and Effect

Rural Electrification – Process and Effect

Above – on the left is the old Vaughan’s Hall in Ballydehob. Local historian Eugene McSweeney tells this tale:

. . . This hall in Ballydehob ‘had the Electricity’ around 1951-52. UK Queen Elizabeth II was crowned in 1953 – June 2 – and a film was made by the BBC. This film was sent around to be shown in village halls etc all over Britain, but also in Ireland. Vaughan’s Hall was able to borrow a projector, and an evening was set aside to show the coronation film. There were ‘some local lads’ who felt that good Irish citizens shouldn’t be gawking at this English Royal event. They brought some heavy chains, and threw them over the new electric wires connecting into the hall. This caused a short circuit and the lights – and the film – went out! Ballydehob had to wait for another day to see the coronation . . .

Eugene McSweeney, Ballydehob

During the 1930s most towns in Ireland were connected to the National Grid. The outbreak of World War II in Europe led to shortages of fuel and materials and the electrification process in Ireland came to a virtual halt. In the early 1950s the Rural Electrification Scheme gradually brought electric power to the countryside, a process that was completed on the mainland in 1973 – not without some Herculean efforts by the on-site crews . . .

. . . While battling with the rocks in the Schull/Ballydehob fastnesses, blasting our way to our goal, we were informed that our next area was Castletownbere. No stick of exploding gelignite could produce more of a stunning effect in the Area Office than when the news reached us. Then we knew we were being accepted and acknowledged as mountainy men, men of steel and gelignite, capable of shaking still further the serenity of the West Cork mountains whose calm had not been disturbed by the noise of men and clash of steel since O’Sullivan Bere . . .

ESB ARCHIVES – AO Report 1951

Above – the pegging teams faced an onerous task when they moved over to the Beara Peninsula. Here are extracts from the reports of the Area Officer when works set out towards Castletownbere in late 1951:

. . . In November 1951 I left Ballydehob to visit Castletownbere area, the future scene of our endeavours. Looking at the country between Glengariff and Castletownbere I wrote off the battle of the Schull area as a skirmish, as I felt that the real battle was here. Here were crags, crevices, canyons, woods, bogs, etc, which defied all exaggeration. W Trusick, the pegging engineer, was very much depressed at the thought of what lay ahead of him as we climbed up the winding road from Glengarriff to the heights of Loughavaul and beyond again to Coolieragh. However, when we topped the climb at Coolieragh the vista of mountain and sea that met our eyes gave us a temporary respite from our morose reflections . . .

ESB ARCHIVES

Extract from the reports of the Area Officer when works set out towards Castletownbere in late 1951:

. . . Here was a scene that is hard to equal anywhere else in Ireland. Ahead of us lay the country of O’Sullivan Beara. Away in the distance lay Beara island like a sleeping monster resting on the sea, protected on the northern side by the massive bulk of Hungry Hill, and farther west by a ring of mountains whose western slopes dip down into the Atlantic Ocean. Behind us we looked across Bantry Bay at Bantry away in the distance sheltered by the bulk of Whiddy island. Nearer to us was Glengariff with its myriad of islets and heavily wooded hinterland, cosy and comfortable looking, secure in the shelter of its encircling mountains. On a cold November day in the weak wintry sunshine people do not stay long admiring scenery from such a dank vantage point as Coolieragh, and so we continued our journey westwards along by Adrigole, close to the Healy Pass, skirting the foot of Hungry Hill with its silver streak waterfalls and finally we arrived at the capital of the Beara Peninsula, Castletownbere . . .

ESB Archives

. . . Mr O’Driscoll and his crew in Dromahane, had apparently two major obstacles: First, the landed gentry who vehemently objected to the “beastly sticks” being put anywhere on their land: the second being a van which objected to moving under any circumstances whatever. Of the original 320 economic acceptances, 57 were ‘backsliders’, most of these being cottagers and small farmers. As an offset, 20 new consumers were gained, mostly having large premises, with the result that the total revenue was increased by £2. Only 20 premises were wired for outside light, due, in general, to the speed with which the contractors wanted to move from one house to another, and to their telling their clients that outside wiring could be done after they had been connected to the supply lines. Principal items sold in the area were 20 cookers, 30 irons, 20 kettles and 11 Milking Machines. Milking Machines are becoming increasingly popular in this area, solving as they do, the problem of milking on a Sunday when, normally, labour is not available. Mr O’Driscoll is doubtful if post development will meet with any marked success . . .

ESB Archives – DromAhane, Co Cork

It’s intriguing that the reports in the ESB Archives from the time of installation so often represent negative views about the ‘success’ or otherwise of the rural electrification project (Mr O’Driscoll is doubtful if post development will meet with any marked success). It’s as if this ‘new fangled’ technology is never going to take the place of the way traditional life is lived in remoter places. With this viewpoint, the drudgery of manual tasks such as bringing in water from an outside source, cooking, washing clothes is likely to continue, with the housewife / farmer’s wife and their children having maximum input. It’s just as well that a more enlightened attitude prevailed in some places – here’s an early taker of the benefits of an electric egg sorting machine (ESB Archives):

In urban areas, there was certainly enthusiasm for the improvements which ‘modern living’ offered (below). The new devices must have appeared exotic at first, but no doubt their benefits were instantly apparent to those who set their minds positively.

The heroes were the riggers and the geligniters, braving the elements and the raw landscape, to eventually bring power to the furthest reaches of rural Ireland (a task not completed, it could be said, until 1991, when Cape Clear – off our own West Cork coast – was connected to the National Grid). After those heroes came the dealers and traders. Someone had to provide all the water heaters, pumps, milking machines, refrigerators, cookers, washing machines . . . It was big business.

Above – an ESB salesman exercising persuasion on a willing customer. The man looks on! Below – interesting juxtaposition . . .

. . . Once a community was connected, or about to be connected, the ESB held public demonstrations of household appliances. These were then sold bringing electric irons, kettles, stoves to homes. The demonstration evening in Glenamaddy was held in January 1951. The handwritten report records that it took place “in the very fine Esker Ballroom”; these events were social occasions that brought communities together. The Glenamaddy evening “was attended by about 90, including 50 women. As is usual, the women appeared to be more keen than the men and more inclined to ask questions (and to argue). After the demonstration, a melodeon player turned up and an impromptu dance got under way” . . . Small towns and rural townlands became brighter and winters less harsh and Christmas more special as the fairy lights began to shine. It also gave rise to a rural Irish icon as every house had the Sacred Heart picture with the (electric) red lamp: many didn’t get a kettle and washing machine until later on . . .

ESB ARCHIVES

(Above) Seán Lemass – Minister for Industry and Commerce – performing the formal ‘switch-on’ in Ballinamult Creamery (Co Waterford) on 1st March 1954. This was the Electricity Supply Board’s 100,000th customer. Also in attendance are Mr R F Browne, ESB Chairman, and The Very Rev Father Walsh, PP Ballinamult.

Above: “As the last rays of sun leave the hills, the lights go on at Ballinamult Creamery, the Board’s 100,000th Rural Consumer”

. . . In November, Miss Crowley of the ICA toured Sherkin Island and lectured in nearby Skibbereen giving her ideas on modern home-making and sponsoring the use of electricity to a great extent. The area demonstration at the end of November was very well attended and sparked off a keen interest in the various appliances on show, just as the connections in the area were commencing. ESB sales in the area are now in the region of £1,300 while contracts are on hands for six pumping installations . . .

ESB ARCHIVES

Thanks once more to Michael Barry for inspiring this brief study. Also to the ESB Archives, The Irish Story and Eugene McSweeney. Roaringwater Journal is always pleased to receive comments and contributions on any subject we take up.

Previous posts on Ireland’s Electrification:

Night’s Candles are Burnt Out

Electrifying West Cork

Electrifying West Cork

The traditional Irish village: Lusk, Co Dublin, in 1954 (photo from ESB Archives). Thatched buildings, the village pump, bicycles: a man sitting on the stone smoking his pipe. The intrusions are the poles and the overhead lines bringing the modern world into rural Ireland. Lusk was connected to the new grid close to the beginning of a project that spread out from the major conurbations from the late 1920s, taking some fifty years to embrace the whole state.

Rural Electrification arrives in Dromiskin, Co Louth, in 1949. Cork Electric Supply Co Ltd was in operation in Cork City before 1927. It supplied 4,225 homes and businesses in 1929, rising to 5,198 by March 1930, before being acquired by ESB in April 1930. Close neighbouring communities began to receive connections from 1930 onwards; Skibbereen and Bantry waited until 1937, while Schull and Ballydehob were without until works crept into furthest West Cork in 1952.

Above – family Life in 1950s rural Ireland (photo by Robert Cresswell). When I was a boy in 1950s England, I was probably fortunate to live in a house where electricity had been connected: my parents were quite progressive in that respect. I well remember the brown bakelite switches and plugs (two sizes: small and large). However, I often visited my Granma who lived in a house without any of it. It was a bit like the one above (which is in Kinvara). Gas globes hung from the ceilings: they had to be lit with tapers while pulling down on a lever. Cooking and heating came from a black coal range, and there was one cold tap in the scullery. There was no bathroom or shower, only a toilet outside in a shed. But there was a large wireless set – just like the one shown above. It was powered by an ‘accumulator’ which had to be taken to the shop up the road to be refilled with acid every few weeks. My Granma lived and died without ‘electrics’.

Above – Ballydehob before electrification. The ESB Archives are alive with colourful descriptions of the Rural Electrification works arriving here and in neighbour Schull. Reports from the on-site engineers are droll . . .

Schull Rural Area, April 1952 . . . Mr O’Driscoll opens his post-construction report in almost poetic terms and then to show that he is not bound to one form of art, proceeds to give us a word picture of the terrain in Schull, which is even more realistic than the deepest purples that Paul Henry ever used. We gather that pegging was, at times, a highly arduous and dangerous task and it would appear that among the wonders of the modern world, the greatest (in the view of the pegging team), was how this Area was ever selected for electrification . . .

ESB Archives

‘Pegging’ is a term in common use in the ESB Archives. It refers to the art of raising poles and stringing them with wires across the country. Evidently, the ‘landed gentry’ unkindly described them as “those beastly sticks”. Over 1 million poles were erected eventually, with 78,754km of wire used and a total of 2,280lbs of gelignite consumed during construction. The overall cost was some £36m (equivalent to €1.5bn today).

. . . We had very few wayleave difficulties. Sometimes an argument would develop with a local farmer whether the patch of grass where we put a peg was a field or not. If he convinced us it was a field, which he usually did by showing us the welts on his hand, we shifted the peg. It would seem too much like taking the bread from the mouth of a child to destroy his farm and livelihood by one pole . . .

ESB ARCHIVES

Above – Celebrations came with the connection of the 100,000th premises in 1954. Now we return to our own West Cork:

. . . It is interesting to note, and perhaps might be taken as a headline, that the early switch-in of the villages of Schull and Ballydehob (1952) had an excellent reaction on the more outlying areas and could not be denuded of all credit for the extra consumers eventually connected . . . There was an amusing revival of an ancient rivalry between the two villages. Ballydehob, looking with pride at their 100kVA transformer, were inclined to be scornful of Schull where a 50kVA transformer was erected; but the Schull people not to be out-done, countered by pointing out that there were many more poles in their “Town” than in Ballydehob “Village”. . . Only 8 houses remained to be wired when the gang left the area, 3 of these were parochial property and 4 were under the control of the Board of Works . . .

ESB ARCHIVes

The mention of “parochial property” in the paragraph above – from the ESB Archives – is of significance. The term would be applied to churches and schools, certainly. As outlined in last week’s post, Seán Keating was scornful of his view of the clergy position on Electrification: his Night’s Candles painting shows the priest still reading by the light of a candle while the world moves on around him. We can find differing views on the attitude of the Church.

. . . Throughout the length and breadth of Ireland politicians of all political shades lobbied the ESB for their area to be electrified. It wasn’t just politicians who tried to exert their influence: in July 1957, the parish priest of Ballycroy, County Mayo, wrote to the Rural Electrification Office. He said that his parishioners were anxious and that they believed he could influence decisions at the Dublin head office. “Sometimes people get an idea that the PP isn’t taking any interest in these matters. I need not add that I have a very deep enthusiasm for the light coming to Ballycroy” . . .

The Irish Story.com

Above – celebration in Dublin St Patrick’s Day Parade 1954. Here in Ballydehob I was pleased to hear some reminiscence from retired schoolmaster Noel Coakley pertaining to the ‘parochial property’ which remained to be wired when the gangs left the area:

. . . Having had the luxury of the electric light when growing up in Bantry town in the 1940s and 50s, rural electrification was a subject of which I was blissfully unaware until my first teaching post, 60 years ago next month in Tragumna National School near Skibbereen. Though the building was wired for electricity and rural electrification had already arrived in the area, the school wasn’t connected to the grid. On checking the reason, the reply I received from the then School Manager, the local Parish Priest, was, ‘Why would a school need electricity?’ End of the matter! Indeed, I should have known better because my own alma mater, Bantry Boys’ NS which was on the Hospital Road, wasn’t even wired for electricity. In fact, it wasn’t connected until the autumn of 1970 during the 2 year experiment, 1969-71, on having Summer Time all year round. Back teaching in Bantry by then, teachers and pupils had to endure almost pitch dark classrooms for the first year of the trial. Coming to Ballydehob in February 1971 was going from darkness into light because the school here could even boast of having electric sockets into which we could plug new fangled machines like tape recorders, while Bantry Boys’ had only being upgraded to two 100w single bulbs per classroom. Regarding Rural Electrification in Ballydehob, I think the village was connected around 1954. I do recall that the area around the townland of Knockroe, bordered between Bantry Road and Skibbereen Road, didn’t get connected until the 1970s because the majority of residents refused connection when the rest of the district was being electrified . . .

Noel Coakley, Ballydehob – personal communication

Above – a network of ‘pegs’ crossing the north side of the Mizen today.

Once again, I am grateful to Michael Barry for pointing me in the direction of some of this information, and for switching on the lights for me in respect of the extensive ESB Archives. I also appreciate the contributions of Noel Coakley and Eugene McSweeney, Ballydehob. Are there any other stories out there? More to follow next week!

Night’s Candles are Burnt Out

There’s a wealth of tales to be told about the first decades of independent Ireland. The 1920s and 1930s saw a flourishing of confident projects portraying a nation on the cusp of change, establishing itself in Europe and beyond. One such was the hydro-electric scheme at Ardnacrusha on the River Shannon. Foundations were laid in 1925 and works completed within four years, providing the young country with what was then the world’s largest power station. The intention was to enable everyone in Ireland to avail of the most trendsetting modern commodity: electricity.

The documentary photo above looks like a scene from a science-fiction film: it’s the control station at Ardnacrushsa, shortly after the completion of the project. This, and many other of the illustrations which I will refer to, are taken from the excellent ESB Archives: I am very grateful to them for the use of these. The building of the huge dam and power station was documented in fine detail – and not just in words and photographs. The notoriously outspoken and visionary artist – Seán Keating – chose to record the accomplishments in his own medium, painting.

This is one of Keating’s works from the time: Night’s Candles are Burnt Out. (Thanks to Gallery Oldham). It is, perhaps, the finale of his series drawn and painted during the construction of the works – which he undertook on site under his own initiative and without a sponsor. Art historian (and biographer of Keating) Dr Éimear O’Connor suggests:

. . . Keating went down to Ardnacrusha because he knew that the construction project was emerging history. It was all happening around where he was born and raised. The machinery was going to carve up this landscape that he saw as ‘a medieval dungheap’, that was how he described it in later years. And this was a metaphor for him, the whole thing was all about Ireland moving forward into modernity. Night’s Candles features the dam at Ardnacrusha, but also includes a group of figures in the foreground, all of whom represent different aspects of what Keating saw as the Ireland of the day. When he showed it at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin, it was called ‘the problem painting of the year,’ which Keating thought was hilarious. They couldn’t get their heads around this idea of what he was trying to do at all . . .

O’Connor: Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation, 2013 (Irish Academic Press)

In this detail from the painting we see Keating himself (top right) together with his wife and sons, pointing to the vision of Ireland’s future. On the left of the full painting is Keating again, inspecting a hanging skeleton, perhaps reminiscent of the Famine. Most significantly, perhaps, at the bottom right is a priest reading by the light of the candle. O’Connor is clear about this portrayal:

. . . It tells you an awful lot about Keating and his attitude to the Church at the time. Like many others in the cultural sphere in Ireland, he was disappointed with post-Treaty Ireland, with successive governments and the Church, who were in cahoots, if you know what I mean. He knew well that the whole country was tied up with them, and with that kind of organized religion that was deeply conservative. And Night’s Candles is very much an expression of that disappointment, I think . . .

O’Connor: Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation, 2013 (Irish Academic Press)

It’s worth dwelling on this painting a little longer, and viewing Keating’s thought processes, through O’Connor’s eyes:

. . . What Keating was trying to do was reflect upon a country on the brink of change. It was in those years, in the 1920s, that the term ‘gombeen man’ came into being. We all know that it means the kind of businessman or politician who’s making money off the backs of everybody else. And that’s the gombeen man in the middle of the painting. I think it’s quite clear that Keating’s hope was that modernity, as represented by Ardnacrusha, would end all that stage-Ireland paddywhackery that had prevailed for years . . .

O’Connor: Seán Keating: Art, Politics and Building the Irish Nation, 2013 (Irish Academic Press)

Above – posters from the time of the construction work at Ardnacrusha (ESB Archives). It was certainly the most exciting project in Ireland’s young days, and tourism was encouraged. Hand-in-hand with the major works themselves went a crucial publicity campaign to encourage people to embrace the coming of a readily available electricity supply to homes and businesses. The steps taken to try and ‘get the message across’ was an uphill task. Considerable funds were expended – and a large sales force garnered – to tour the country and persuade the population to buy into the project.

The visuals, humour and underlying psychology of this Ardnacrusha construction-era promotional poster really appeal to me. In case you can’t read the ‘small print’, this is the message that’s being pushed:

. . . 90,000 Horse Power of energy will be available from the Shannon Electrical Power Station next year for Irish Industry and Irish homes . . . The American workman is the most prosperous on earth, because he has, on average, three horse-power, the equivalent of thirty human slaves, helping him to produce. No wonder he can toil less and be paid more than the workman of other lands. He is not a toiler, he is a director of machinery . . .

Post-Famine, America was always seen as the ‘golden land of opportunity’ for Irish emigrants. Now, in 1930, we are being told that Ireland will have the capability to match those fabled fortunes!

. . . Shannon Electricity will lift the heavy work of industry from human shoulders to the iron shoulders of machines . . .

The coming of electricity across Ireland opened up markets for retailers to vend a host of innovative gadgets. This mobile electricity showroom from the 1950s (ESB Archives) covers the gamut of lighting, cooking, refrigerating, water supply to sinks using pumps, milking machines and labour-saving devices for farms. In a future post I want to focus on Rural Electrification, which was a long haul: taking poles and wires out into the extensive hinterland. This was – arguably – the most heroic part of the process of electrification, and we can’t help wondering whether the following somewhat iconic ESB print of the first ‘peg’ being raised at Kilsallaghan, on 5 November 1946 was inspired by the famous Iwo Jima Victory photograph taken by Associated Press photographer Joe Rosenthal on February 23 1945 (lower pic). Both portray a moment of triumph.

Many thanks are due to Michael Barry who referred me to material from the ESB Archives covering our own West Cork areas. Watch out for our commentary on this in a forthcoming post!