Heritage Notes - 28 January 2011

Library Celebrations

2010 sees the centenary of the Carnegie Free Library at Cappoquin. Built and opened in 1910 on a site donated by Sir John Keane, the local library has stood the test of time and economics in excellent shape, and it will be great to see it reach this milestone during the year. We hope to have more complete details about any plans for anniversary celebrations in the coming weeks, and know that this is something that a lot of people feel very positively about.

In the Money

Many thanks to the various bodies who assisted Civic Link projects towards the end of 2010 with financial aid, much of it unexpected but all of it very welcome in these cash-strapped times. The Foróige club benefited from two grants from Waterford County Council, totalling €1559 in all, which will be a great support to its efforts to provide activities and supports to our teenagers. Civic Link has also been successful in its first efforts to promote the Inch area, with a promise of €1250 from the Local Agenda 21 fund, for wildlife signage and possibly a seat at the car park adjacent to the Red Bridge. We are going to visit the Fenor Bog in the Spring in search of more ideas for enhancing and preserving this unique natural area at the river bend, a project which has been identified for implementation under the 2010 town plan. A note also to inform people that the Heritage Group sold over 600 Christmas cards with Cappoquin themes in the four-week spell before Christmas, netting a profit of over €200 and helping people to send a bit of the old place to friends and relatives around the globe. Thanks for the support. Lastly, but by no means least, our thanks to everyone at Cappoquin Fire Station for their contribution of €400 to Civic Link’s funds for community support, part of the proceeds from their pre-Christmas ladder climb. It all counts, big time!

Keep in Touch

Just a reminder that you can keep in touch with all Civic Link goings on at www.cappoquin.net or join us on facebook, where you will find we have 206 ‘friends’ at the last count, with 338 following the heritage group also.

Heritage Notes - 14 January 2011

Weather history

Happy new year to everyone. After many investigations and discussions, it looks fairly certain at this point that the recent spell of cold weather, which caused the Blackwater to freeze at Cappoquin in huge solid masses, was the most extreme on record locally. There were very cold winters in 1963 and 1947, but the freezing river was certainly a new one locally, by all accounts. Celsius and Farenheit measuring scales only go back two or three hundred years and for sure we have no record of anything colder locally from them either.

Our picture this week is of the river as seen from the Rock, looking across at Lefanta. The spot on the far bank where the boat and pontoon are is one of those where the very first ‘Cappoquin people’ operated from back in 6000 BC or so. This has been documented by archaeologists at UCC since the 1980s. At that point, the river also probably had large chunks of ice in it like you can see here, as the ice age was ending and the earliest people began to make their way up rivers to hunt and fish. So, the only thing we can say for certain is that the scene you are looking at here HAS been seen before, except that the boat was probably a dug out canoe, the cameraman (if there had been one) would have been wearing animal skins, and it was at least 8,000 years ago!