The Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society 2019 - 2020 lecture season continues on Friday October 18th with a lecture at 8 pm in St Patrick's Gateway Centre, Waterford when Dr Connie Kelleher will deliver a talk titled "Pirates, Slaves and Shipwrecks: Maritime Heritage of Waterford's Coast".
The coastal landscape of Waterford and the southeast is a maritime one. With its strategic ports, harbours and smaller havens, the county's coastline has provided shelter, sanctuary and safety for ships throughout the centuries. It also facilitated a whole range of maritime activities, ranging from legitimate mercantile trade in goods, involvement in the transatlantic movement of slaves, to the illicit business of piracy and smuggling. Waterford Harbour thus witnessed shipping of all sizes to service local, regional, European and emerging global markets.
Such large volumes of shipping unsurprisingly attracted the attention of speculators, private operators (commissioned privateers), pirates, and their cohorts the smugglers, who operated in parallel to supply black markets and burgeoning grey economies. The growth in transoceanic shipping inevitably led to a high volume of maritime losses, and the waters around Waterford are the final resting places of many stricken vessels, their crews and passengers that were stranded, plundered or wrecked. The talk will discuss the nature of Waterford's maritime landscape and delve into some of the historical and archaeological evidence for these activities and shipwrecks through time.
Dr Connie Kelleher is a member of the State Underwater Archaeology Unit (UAU) in the National Monuments Service (NMS), Department of Culture, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. Connie's work with NMS in the protection of Ireland's underwater heritage is broad, and includes survey, recording, excavation and management of developmental impacts through the planning process.
Connie's own research interests include post-medieval archaeology, particularly Ireland's maritime and shipwreck heritage, as well as the history and archaeology of piracy in Irish waters in the early-17th century.
Admission to the lecture is €5 (students €3.00), but is free for members of the Waterford Archaeological and Historical Society. Details of the full programme of monthly lectures and other events can be found on the Society's Facebook page www.facebook.com/waterfordhistory/. New members are always welcome, the membership application form can be downloaded from http://www.waterford-history.org.
