In his daily history slot on WLR's Big Breakfast Blaa, Eamonn McEneaney tells Ollie and Mary all about the experiment in 1782 to build a new town for Swiss clock and watch makers near Passage East in Waterford and the involvement of Architect Edward Smith.
New Geneva Barracks was identified as the proposed site for a planned colony for artisan and intellectual Genevan settlers, who had become refugees following a failed rebellion against a French and Swiss government in the city. Ireland had been granted a parliament separate from London in 1782 and it was thought that the creation of the colony would stimulate new economic trade with the continent.
James Gandon, who designed the Custom House, was commissioned to create a masterplan for the site overlooking the Waterford Estuary. The plans for the colony eventually collapsed, however, when the Genevans insisted that they should be represented in the Irish parliament but govern themselves under their own Genevan laws. It then became a barracks following the United Irishmen Rebellion in 1798.
If you enjoy Eamonn’s slots with us on The Big Breakfast Blaa, listen here to what he had to say about the very interesting life of Sampson Twogood Roch (1757–1847) an Irish painter of miniatures.
And below is his chat with us the Genevan experiment that never came to pass...
