Page 128 - Greystones Archaeological Historical Society

CÚL OF THE ROCK

of the two photos; either that, or the men have just brought the
gig to the beach and are getting ready to launch it. It can be seen
between the two brightly painted transom-sterned boats just
under the crab wall. A forward-leaning mast is stepped just
forward of amidships and a small jib-sail is rolled around the
forestay. The main is about a quarter raised and the boat is
painted white, or some other very light colour. This is clearly the
same small (Coastguard?) gig pictured in photo number
3331.W.L.

In the foreground to the extreme left of the photo the three
metal stanchions set into the rock are clearly visible; they are
even more so in the online image, as are the two mooring lines
that stretch right across the harbour from the (unseen) stern of
the schooner moored at the jetty. The nearer of the stanchions
brought back to me the substantial ring linked into a ringbolt that
was set into the same roundy rock at the time the jetty was built,
and that was still functional when I was a five year old, the time
I slipped off the same rock into the tide and nearly drowned.

There is one further photo in the sequence, identified on the
photograph as ‘Bray Head from Greystones. 3339.W.L.’ and as
being part of the Cabinet Collection (see below).

The image captured is of the same top-sail schooner still
unloading at the jetty, the disposition of the rigging still the same
as in the earlier photo. The whole picture is well lit. It is afternoon,
and sunny. The banks and cliffs along the north beach in the
background are also much clearer and I fancy I can make out
the original ‘Gap Bridge’. There is only one horse and dray on
the pier and a full lift of coal bags has just cleared the hatch. A
man stands in the very stern of a rowing boat alongside the port
quarter of the schooner, which obscures all but the stern of the
boat. Whether it is the same man and boat that was on the water
earlier in the day, there is no way of knowing, but it’s likely. What
124