When the sun is out, the birds are singing, the weather is dry, you're young and full of energy and vigour and for once the tyres are fully pumped. We were spoiled for choice, Dromineer, Youghalarra or for the more adventurous.....Garrykennedy, Luska and Castlelough. Memories also of going for a Sunday drive to Dromineer in your Holy Communion suit and unable to get out of the car in case you spoiled the fabric....meanwhile all the parked cars listening to Michail O'Hehir commentating on "the match". In later years we would take a boat out to the Curraghkeens or maybe Inis Cealthra, stopping off on return to The Whiskey Still for a well earned drink after a day on the lake. It was then when you put your elbows on the bar you discovered that you were burned to a frazzle from holding the tiller into the sun.

Here are some images from the National Library and elsewhere. Strange seeing the remnants of the castle without all that ivy and of course the harbour without the floating gin palaces....

Photo taken in 1910 showing the Yacht Club and the Cantwell Castle ruins. The castle is devoid of Ivy and gives a clearer picture of how it may once have looked when approached from the lake

Girls paddling on the foreshore. Despite it's condition there's much detail to be discerned from the image

This image from pre-Ardnacrusha era shows the true level of the lake In the background you can see the canal Store which was built in 1853 by the Grand Canal company. It must be noted that Dromineer was a busy harbour with barges plying up, down and acros the lake moving goods hither and dither. From the canal Store and Warehouse goods were transported by horse and dray and dispersed into Nenagh and its hinterland. It also saw the removal of Agricultural produce from the surrounding area. The advent of the railway in Nenagh put and end to the reliance on the lake and canal as a means of transport. However trading still took place until the Canal Store closed in the 1950's.

They start them young on the Lake....

Vista's

View of Dromineer before the houses were built - (NLI)

Dromineer Castle & Houses - (NLI)

A view of the Church and graveyard with the warehouse in the background - (NLI)

Postcards from Dromineer

A variety of Dromineer postcards

Miscellany

Some of the original owners of lands in Knigh, Monsea (Musea) and Dromineer (Dromoneire) and the new owners under Act of Settlement of 1652. This is a 1674 copy of the list of transfer of ownership. (virtualtreasury.ie)

Ormond Deeds Vol. IV

The Parliamentary Gazetteer of Ireland - 1846

'Racing for the Corinthian Challenge Cup on Lough Derg' painted by Montaque Dawson. Supposedly capturing a moment on Lough Derg, there is now some dispute as to the actual background. Nevertheless it fetched £87000 at auction in 2019. However if you look at the print on the right by the same artist, it's entitled Isle of Cowes Regatta 1953. The boats and mountain backgrounds are not dissimilar.

The Lough Derg Corinthian Yacht Club Challenge Cup was won outright by Robert Jocelyn Waller's yacht 'Checkmate' in 1907.

The Yacht Club

Lough Derg Yacht Club originally founded in 1835 at Kilteelagh House

The Yacht Club building rebuilt in 2000

The Hostelries

The world famous Sail Inn, originally the Dromineer residence for the agent of the Shannon Navigation Company

Sail Inn ephemera

The Whiskey Still - dating from the 1840's

The Crows Nest - successor to the Sail Inn

The Houses

The Boat Club house built circa 1890 - composting 01/06/2024

The Bungalow - Tin House Built 1910

1880 - 1900

Neddy's Cottage (Nedeen's) - home to generations of Hogan's who were Gillies to visiting fishermen. Now a shop it was last a home in the 1970's

The Grand Canal Company

The Nenagh Tramway

Freemans Journal - 22/10/1872 - Nenagh Town Council proposes a tramway from Dromineer to Nenagh.....if only!!! .....By 08/09/1883 the proposal was the tramway be extended to Thurles under the Tramways Act

Rough Weather

Dromineer Church

12th Century Romanesque Dromineer Church

Some of the original carvings used as rubble infill during renovation works

Cantwell Castle ruins aka Dromineer castle

Ormond Deeds Vol V

Views of the Cantwell Castle

Site of Cushnamona Soup Kitchen on the road back into town. Starving Catholics were offered soup if they renounced their religion during the famine.

Here at a glance we can see the effects of the Famine on the local population. If you compare the Persons column for 1841 with that of 1881 we can see a drastic drop in population. Thus Ballyartella was 137 in 1841 and had fallen to 31 by 1881. However if you look at Dromineer itself, although there have been reductions with a steady decline since 1841, no doubt the Port and harbour at Dromineer provided some form of employment and opportunity for sustenance.

....and so we leave Dromineer harbour and we move on to the next adventure!