Signal tower in Ballynarrid

The signal tower at Bunmahon Head has been demolished and its exact position is not known (OD c. 60m). It is believed to have been sited in Ballynarrid townland (see below,) perhaps immediately adjacent to the NW of ‘Slippery Island’, a narrow peninsula jutting out into Bunmahon Bay. The surrounding area is characterised by generally level terrain with short steep sea cliffs forming the coastline adjacent to the SW, SE and E of the probable site. The surrounding area consists of enclosed pastureland characterised by generally linear field boundaries with limited short areas of rough ground located adjacent to the coastline. The adjacent stations in the signal station\tower chain were located at Islandhubbock, Ballyvoyle Head (WA032-050----), which was located c. 8.2kms to the WSW, now demolished, and at Islandikane South (WA026-097----), which was located c. 11kms to the E, now also demolished. The probable site of this signal station\tower at Bunmahon Head is located immediately adjacent to the NW of a coastal promontory fort (WA024-068----), located on the peninsula of ‘Slippery Island’, and c. 880m S\SSW of the site of a medieval church (WA024-070----) that is located between this site and the small coastal village of Bunmahon c. 1.2kms to the NNE. The signal station\tower has been demolished and its exact position and its original form is not known. It was demolished at an early stage and it is not depicted on the Ordnance Survey first ed. six-inch map, surveyed 1839-41. It is possible that the signal tower was located on the headland that protrudes into the sea on the W side of Bunmahon Bay. However, Larkin’s 1818 map of County Waterford shows the signal station\tower at Ballynarrid, indicated as ‘telegraph’, in the approximate location where an ‘orphaned’ trigonometry point is marked on Ordnance Survey first ed. six-inch map. Kerrigan established that a signal mast had been erected by 1804 and that the signal tower was completed in 1805 (Kerrigan 1995, 277). It is not known if the signal tower was enclosed or unenclosed (no cartographic evidence to show an enclosure on any of the Ordnance Survey maps of the area). It is notable that the majority of the signal stations\towers (5 out of the 6 that were built c. 1804-5) in Waterford were demolished by the time of the Ordnance Survey first ed. six-inch map series, which is in contrast to the situation for the signal stations in other counties along the Irish coastline. There were concerns expressed (in writing) in 1811 by a Mr. Pope, Waterford Agent of the London Assurance Company, that the disused signal station\towers along the Waterford coastline were causing confusion for seafarers who were mistaking these for lighthouses (particularly Hook Head, Wexford) in poor weather, which led to a number of shipwrecks along the Waterford coastline (around Tramore in particular) in c. 1810. These concerns were apparently acted upon with the demolition of a signal station somewhere close to Tramore (probably at Brownstown Head; WA026-098----) by the end of 1811. Perhaps other signal stations in Waterford were also demolished for the same reasons around this time. The signal tower was part of a system of over 80 signal stations constructed by the British Board of Ordnance in the first decade of the nineteenth century to warn of the approach of a French invasion fleet. Signalling between sites was accomplished using a naval signal post. The system formed a continuous chain from Dublin Bay running clockwise all the way around the coast to Malin Head in County Donegal. It was abandoned by the mid-1810s when the threat of a French invasion diminished (Kerrigan 1995, 157-66). Compiled by: Stuart Rathbone Uploaded on: 03/10/22