I was recently chatting with Ringsend man, Philly Saunders who reminisced on old times. During the conversation he told me that he was a grandson of one of the original ‘Torbays’ who had come to Ringsend for the fishing in the last century from Devon and Cornwall.

His grandfather was 19 years old when he arrived , and he married a local girl. The fishing declined due to the new sewerage plant built in the early part of this century on the South Wall. Phillys father also decided to seek employment locally. He eventually got a job in the new Pigeon House power station.

When Philly was growing up, his mother brought his dad’s lunch down to him most days. It was an enjoyable walk with Philly making the journey when ever he got the chance.

He then told me about the work done at the Isolation Hospital and the nuns with large head-dresses moving in and renovating the hospital for coping with the ravages of T.B.

It was when he got to the Pigeon House Fort’s gate that my ears pricked up. There were still soldiers there with a sentry on guard at the gate. To gain access you would have to give the password that happened to be the code of the day. Sometimes it would be named as a particular time of day, and it was changed regularly.

His father would always know the password. Philly then said that you would have to be careful about the tracks that wound into the Fort: “ I’d seen a few men not paying attention to them and getting their wheels stuck in their grooves, and flying over the handlebars”.

We finished up the conversation but he set my mind racing. What were these tracks for ? Could they have been tram tracks? Or was Philly simply mistaken. I put my questions on the back bumer for a couple of weeks.

The old saying about when searching for one thing you end up finding something else is really quite true. I happened to be searching for something entirely different when an old photograph was handed to me.

I paid it only a fleeting glance, but the hair on the back of my neck stood up when I got a good look at it. The front entrance to the Pigeon House Fort with the famous tracks running out of it.
The following is a brief account of how these tracks happened to be there.

Advertisements were placed in all of the leading Irish papers, as well as Glasgow and Liverpool, along with leading engineering and contract publications, for the dredging of the Pigeon House Harbour. After a considerable length of time, they had only received two tenders for the job. One from a Mr. Frank Bevis of Portsmouth who tendered £2,500. Dublin Corporation considered this excessive.

The Hammond Lane foundry also submitted a request that they be permitted to tender for the work. This would be subject to their own condition that, instead of bringing the spoil brought up by the dredgers out to sea, they be permitted to lay and use a tramline from the harbour to the a tip head on the opposite side of the Fort. This was to be used as a landfill and the beginnings of land reclamation in that general area.

This position was close to the Isolation Hospital, where a large portion of the spoil from the Main Drainage Works had been deposited, to which Hammond Lane proposed dumping their own spoil. One more condition was required: that they be given an extension of time, from two months to three. The Hammond Lane tender was for £1,825.

The Corporation then got in touch with Mr. Bevis to revise his estimate. He was unable to do so as he had to bring his own material, plant etc over by sea.The Corporation in fact wanted Bevis to win the contract as he had done a similar job to great success in Portsmouth.

The tender was awarded to Hammond Lane. The work was duly carried out very successfully in the early Summer of 1904.

Many thanks Philly, for putting me on the right track!