Uploaded January 2026 | Updated September 2026, 3 days ago
Jack Keating - Sea-Prizes and Gifts from the Sea
Here is chat I recorded today in the home of Jack Keating by the sea in Ballyconnigar in Blackwater. I was talking to him last night as his daughter told me he had big platters that they were told came off the Pomona that sank in April 1859. So I went out to have a look and take a few snaps.
Anyway - no sooner was I in the kitchen, and Jack wanted to talk so I took out the phone and recorded a little bit about the plates. The plates are interesting and bought at a local auction where some of the recovered contents of the ship were sold off. He told me his neighbours dresser that was covered with a complete set of this Staffordshire ware that was supposed to come from the sunken ship. The dresser is gone but he told me where the set might be.
As he grew up by the sea, he had loads of stories of objects the washed up and how they used these ‘sea-prizes’ for roofing sheds to providing food and sometimes entertainment. He spoke of how loads washed up after the war and how they found chocolate, cigarettes, bacon, candle-wax, wood, sea-mines, butter, flares, shells and things like torpedoes that they let off in a local marl hole. There is also a bit about a type of boat we had along the east coast of Wexford called a 'double-ender' where both ends were the same and made specially for landing and taking off on a sandy beach.
Brilliant content here from Jack and I love his accent too. Very similar to my own fathers and that of the Macamores especially when you hear him pronounce ‘mother’ and ‘father’. The chat is just in the kitchen, from the phone and bit out in his shed by the ladder that washed up. I’ll be back to Jack on a fine day for more chats but this will do for now. Enjoy.
Text: Michael Fortune
Jack Keating - Sea-Prizes and Gifts from the Sea
Here is chat I recorded today in the home of Jack Keating by the sea in Ballyconnigar in Blackwater. I was talking to him last night as his daughter told me he had big platters that they were told came off the Pomona that sank in April 1859. So I went out to have a look and take a few snaps.
Anyway - no sooner was I in the kitchen, and Jack wanted to talk so I took out the phone and recorded a little bit about the plates. The plates are interesting and bought at a local auction where some of the recovered contents of the ship were sold off. He told me his neighbours dresser that was covered with a complete set of this Staffordshire ware that was supposed to come from the sunken ship. The dresser is gone but he told me where the set might be.
As he grew up by the sea, he had loads of stories of objects the washed up and how they used these ‘sea-prizes’ for roofing sheds to providing food and sometimes entertainment. He spoke of how loads washed up after the war and how they found chocolate, cigarettes, bacon, candle-wax, wood, sea-mines, butter, flares, shells and things like torpedoes that they let off in a local marl hole. There is also a bit about a type of boat we had along the east coast of Wexford called a 'double-ender' where both ends were the same and made specially for landing and taking off on a sandy beach.
Brilliant content here from Jack and I love his accent too. Very similar to my own fathers and that of the Macamores especially when you hear him pronounce ‘mother’ and ‘father’. The chat is just in the kitchen, from the phone and bit out in his shed by the ladder that washed up. I’ll be back to Jack on a fine day for more chats but this will do for now. Enjoy.
Text: Michael Fortune
