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Ballast Pit - Skerries

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  • 24-03-2011 8:01pm
    #1
    TangyZizzle
    Registered Users Posts: 2,292 ✭✭✭


    What's the deal with this place?

    That's what I was going to ask before I googled it properly(I didnt know how to spell Ballast) Anyways, now that Iv found out what it was used for, I want to know how it came to be formed.

    http://www.iol.ie/~sealman/Balast.html

    Was it mined for.. sand?


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    #2
    Rashers72
    Registered Users Posts: 1,207 ✭✭✭Rashers72


    They dug stone out of it to break up the stone to form ballast on the Dublin-Belfast rail line. Hence why it has a nickname of the 'ballast pit'!:)


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    #3
    The Hill Billy
    Registered Users Posts: 22,775 ✭✭✭✭The Hill Billy


    Was the gravel/stone also used as ballast by cargo vessels that unloaded in Skerries harbour?


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    #4
    Corsendonk
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,871 ✭✭✭Corsendonk


    Hill Billy wrote: »
    Was the gravel/stone also used as ballast by cargo vessels that unloaded in Skerries harbour?


    Bang on but I always thought it was a sand pit?, never heard the one about the rail using the site but there was a very healthy coal trade into Skerries Harbour that supplied NCD in the days that coal was the main fuel at home and work. Potatoes, herrings. timber and Limestone were traded in the other direction but sand ballast was needed to keep the boat upright. The last coal cargo into Skerries was in 1961. Whitehaven in Cumbria and South Wales were the main trading harbours.


    Description of Unloading Coal Boats

    Droghedaport.ie
    Work on the quays was hard, dirty and dangerous and unloading a coal boat was one of the worst jobs. Usually, six men were stationed in the hold, shovelling the coal into ten-stone bags. They were hoisted on the deck by the ship’s derricks, using rope slings. The other workers lifted the bags onto their backs and ran down to the quay on a single long gangplank two feet wide which bounced up and down with the weight of the men. Needless to say, there were many serious accidents and drownings.


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    #5
    Corsendonk
    Closed Accounts Posts: 3,871 ✭✭✭Corsendonk


    Slightly off topic but since we were talking about collier boats that conducted trade up and down the east coast I just like to point out that we just had the 70th anniversary of the sinking of the SS St Fintan. The St Fintan was sunk off the Pembrokeshire coastline on the 22nd March 1941 by the German Luftwaffe. During the "Emergency" the Irish Maritime Navy suffered mistaken identity attacks from Axis forces. The nine crew of the St Fintan perished including ships Mate Matthew Leonard(46) from Rush.


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