Glandore Union Hall
Garrett O'Mahony
August 21, 2023
Glandore / Union Hall
A rare double name for essentially a drying harbour, Glandore and on the opposite bank a fishing port, Union Hall. Two villages in the same well protected bay. Sailing in we passed several large and elegant houses and we knew were were leaving the wild west and moving towards the more affluent part of County Cork.
HM Garett O'Mahony was full of information, both about the local area and the Irish fishing industry. After a varied career at sea, reaching Chief Officer, he came ashore working fishing and angling boats before starting at HM in 2018. As a seafarer he had travelled the world including working on crude oil tankers which plied a triangular route from Texas to Bahamas via Angola and where he only got to spend half an hour on land in six months. He explained that having a British or Irish Captain meant cheaper insurance for the shipping companies and I expect the money was good.
He told us about the two types of fishing boat that worked out of Union Hall. The larger ones trawled for specific species whereas the smaller ones had to rely on catching different fish to remain self sufficient.
The boats fishing out of Union Hall, where Garett's office was had halved in number since 2018, with Brexit causing the Irish quota being reduced by the EU. He said that mackerel stocks are very healthy offshore and the V notching of female lobsters, so they can be identified and returned to the sea, had worked very well over the last 20 years.
At home his family farm 30 acres relies entirely on EU grants to keep going. Although lots of things had not gone well for Ireland, he said the Irish people are not looking back and I certainly sensed throughout my time in the Republic that the Irish are an optimistic race. We of course asked about the origin of the name Union Hall - the village was simply named after a large house built in 1800, the year of the Act of Union. The original house was burned down in 1921 by the IRA and a bungalow now occupies the spot. Garett went on to talk about the Irish Famine and the surprising fact that in the areas of worse quality land (similar to where his family farmed) the less severe the famine was. The simple reason was, that land never grew potatoes, so there was no reliance on them. These areas of poorer land had stronger communities in place and that is the only way that had survived over centuries. We saw that in the Aran Islands.
Full of gems, Garett told us that as a school boy he had seen the crewless Kowloon Bridge ship (see Castletownbere post) drift past his house on the cliffs above Bantry Bay. Little did he know it was about to get wrecked on the rocks!
Garett clearly loves his job, and he says he has something different to deal with every day. One of the most alarming was when a fisherman brought back in his net what he thought was a rock. It was only once it was dumped in the corner of the harbour, along with all the other "caught" rocks, (see photo) that someone realised it was WW1 explosive and the harbour had to be evacuated fast!
Thank you Garett for all your time and huge breadth of stories. If you ever visit Glandore, be sure to pop into the church, it is full of stories about the tiny harbour.
A rare double name for essentially a drying harbour, Glandore and on the opposite bank a fishing port, Union Hall. Two villages in the same well protected bay. Sailing in we passed several large and elegant houses and we knew were were leaving the wild west and moving towards the more affluent part of County Cork.
HM Garett O'Mahony was full of information, both about the local area and the Irish fishing industry. After a varied career at sea, reaching Chief Officer, he came ashore working fishing and angling boats before starting at HM in 2018. As a seafarer he had travelled the world including working on crude oil tankers which plied a triangular route from Texas to Bahamas via Angola and where he only got to spend half an hour on land in six months. He explained that having a British or Irish Captain meant cheaper insurance for the shipping companies and I expect the money was good.
He told us about the two types of fishing boat that worked out of Union Hall. The larger ones trawled for specific species whereas the smaller ones had to rely on catching different fish to remain self sufficient.
The boats fishing out of Union Hall, where Garett's office was had halved in number since 2018, with Brexit causing the Irish quota being reduced by the EU. He said that mackerel stocks are very healthy offshore and the V notching of female lobsters, so they can be identified and returned to the sea, had worked very well over the last 20 years.
At home his family farm 30 acres relies entirely on EU grants to keep going. Although lots of things had not gone well for Ireland, he said the Irish people are not looking back and I certainly sensed throughout my time in the Republic that the Irish are an optimistic race. We of course asked about the origin of the name Union Hall - the village was simply named after a large house built in 1800, the year of the Act of Union. The original house was burned down in 1921 by the IRA and a bungalow now occupies the spot. Garett went on to talk about the Irish Famine and the surprising fact that in the areas of worse quality land (similar to where his family farmed) the less severe the famine was. The simple reason was, that land never grew potatoes, so there was no reliance on them. These areas of poorer land had stronger communities in place and that is the only way that had survived over centuries. We saw that in the Aran Islands.
Full of gems, Garett told us that as a school boy he had seen the crewless Kowloon Bridge ship (see Castletownbere post) drift past his house on the cliffs above Bantry Bay. Little did he know it was about to get wrecked on the rocks!
Garett clearly loves his job, and he says he has something different to deal with every day. One of the most alarming was when a fisherman brought back in his net what he thought was a rock. It was only once it was dumped in the corner of the harbour, along with all the other "caught" rocks, (see photo) that someone realised it was WW1 explosive and the harbour had to be evacuated fast!
Thank you Garett for all your time and huge breadth of stories. If you ever visit Glandore, be sure to pop into the church, it is full of stories about the tiny harbour.