'Pembroke Dock' is an abbreviation of 'Pembroke Dockyard', the new name given to the location in 1817. The Royal Navy had built the dockyard and adjacent town three years earlier in 1814, initially calling it 'Pater Yard'. The sole purpose of the…

Geoff Charles (1909-2002) was an outstanding photojournalist from Wales. Over the course of four decades, he captured all aspects of life in Wales, particularly in the Welsh-speaking areas. In the 1930s, he worked for several Welsh newspapers. Later…

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…

After the introduction of the uniform penny post in the United Kingdom in 1840, postal volumes grew rapidly and were an increasingly important part of goods traffic between Great Britain and Ireland. In 1849, the Post Office invited tenders for a…

A local story in Pembroke Dock concerns the launch of HMS Caesar, planned for July 21, 1853. The ship was a wooden two decker, screw propelled ship of ninety-one guns. As was the custom on launch days all the residents of Pembroke Dock would flock…

In years gone by in Ireland, there had to be taxes paid on certain goods as tobacco and wine coming from foreign lands to Ireland. But the people who were poor at the time they could not afford to be paying tax on these goods. They often decided to…

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,…

The Dublin Dockers started by collecting old photographs and are delighted to report that our collection has broken through the 4,000 mark. In addition, people have donated over 6,000 documents which we have passed on to Dublin City Council. Most of…

In 1857, Pembroke Dock was the setting for the remarkable climax of the haunting of the HMS Asp which, at the time, was used as a surveying vessel in the Royal Navy under the command of one Captain George Manley Alldridge (1815–1905). Over the…

Until the mid-nineteenth century, Japan was a feudal state governed by a network of powerful families and warlords led by its Shogun, isolated from the rest of the world. At that point, there was a growing realisation that China and Russia were…