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…

In Pembrokeshire, fairies are commonly known as Plant Rhys Ddwfn, the ‘children of Rhys the Deep’, ‘deep’ here referring to depth of character. This particular tribe or type of fairies are of diminutive size like that of a 5- or 6-year old child.…

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…

In 1909, Fishguard became a port of call for the Lusitania on eastbound transatlantic crossings between Liverpool and New York. Not only had Fishguard brought the United Kingdom and the United States closer together, but it also demonstrated the…

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…

Between 25 and 26 October 1859, one of the strongest storms of the 19th century hit the Irish sea. Known as the ‘Royal Charter’ storm , the tempest was named after the ship Royal Charter which was caught on its way from Australia to Britain,…

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,…