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Drevar’s Gold & Wellington Pennies

A Tale of Shipwreck and Lost Treasure   The Banks Many will be aware, and unfortunately for some, they will also remember only too well, how Banks can ‘fail’. The term is of course not an honest assessment of events when due governance and propriety are recklessly abandoned in favour of greed. Terms like ‘maximising […]
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“The South Arklow Light Vessel has Disappeared”

Accurate, but defying an explanation, the announcement as it appears above, was posted in the Custom House, Dublin, on March 31, 1917. Its brevity can be partly explained by war time secrecy, and an importance in preventing the general public and the German navy becoming familiar with British naval matters. The statement did nevertheless indicate […]
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U-Boats Sink the Mail-Boat Leinster and Others in the Irish Channel

The Atlantic Gateway  (Jim Phelan 1941) When ships crossed the channel between Ireland and England during WWI, they were attacked and sunk by German submarines. The loss of ships, Irish or not, with civilians, service men and women, was not only condemned by those considered to be ‘West Brits’, but anger and a sense of […]
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Death of the Battleship HMS Vanguard

‘West Britain’ It was Tuesday, the 31 day of August, 1785, and just a few miles south of Dublin city, the inhabitants of the grand harbor town of Kingston were sleeping soundly in their beds. A number HM ships of the line had arrived earlier in the week for naval exercises and shore leave had […]
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A Riddle of Sand

It is often said that there is too much ‘rubbish’ information on the web. To be sure, there is rubbish but there’s rubbish everywhere. There is certainly not so much that the internet should not be used for research. This would of course be foolish. Like all vaults of information, one must discriminate and discard […]