Uploaded November 2025 | Updated September 2026, 4 days ago
The Tinnaberna Fishermen - A Fishing Tragedy from Kilmuckridge, Co. Wexford. (14th November, 1815)
There is loads of talk tonight in Wexford (and other counties) about the stormy rain and wind coming from the south tomorrow and I’m sure climate change will be blamed for it. I don’t know if it is or not, but I do know that “on the 14th day of November in 18 and 15” a freak Winter storm also came and took the lives of about 30 local fishermen from Tinnaberna on the east coast of Wexford.
I heard about the incident via song and story (nothing written down) and one man in particular, a local traditional singer called John Furlong kept the history alive. We are told that on this very day (hard to believe), seven small fishing cots went out one evening fishing for herring and a freak storm of wind and rain came and them out of the blue. Back then all the men had were oars and when this came, we’re told the women and children watched from the high banks, helpless they got pushed further out to sea. We're told, they did everything to guide them back in but it quickly turned to night and all they could do was pray.
The following day, one of the seven boats was found up the coast and the other six were never seen again. No records, no graves, nothing. Gone.
Back in November 2015, brothers Ned and Joe Kavanagh and myself put up a plaque to mark the 200 anniversary of the tragedy and local man John Furlong sang the song on that day, a squally wet day too, very like the day in 1815. No-one knows how many men were lost as records were not kept and bodies never recovered. Folklore tells us that 30 men drowned that night, however we will never know.
Prior to this stone being erected the only real thing that remembered the event was the song and if John and a handful of others were gone, so too would have this story. John was born and reared nearby and he pieced together his version of the song from what he heard while growing up, mostly from a man called Watt 'The Fiddler' Murphy. Fr. Joe Ranson collected a version from Watt also for his ‘Songs of the Wexford Coast’ but John’s is a fuller version.
I’ve edited up 2 recordings I made of John in Tinnaberna over the years; the first is a windy and wet day and filmed in November 2015 and the other on a sunny day in the summer of 2019. The sound is better in the 2019 recording but I prefer the atmosphere in the 2015 recording as you get a sense of the weather in the song and its great to see local Kilmuckridge people gather that day to remember those who were lost on the 14th of November 1815.
If you have time - listen to this and remember the men lost on that night 210 years ago.
Text: Michael Fortune
The Tinnaberna Fishermen - A Fishing Tragedy from Kilmuckridge, Co. Wexford. (14th November, 1815)
There is loads of talk tonight in Wexford (and other counties) about the stormy rain and wind coming from the south tomorrow and I’m sure climate change will be blamed for it. I don’t know if it is or not, but I do know that “on the 14th day of November in 18 and 15” a freak Winter storm also came and took the lives of about 30 local fishermen from Tinnaberna on the east coast of Wexford.
I heard about the incident via song and story (nothing written down) and one man in particular, a local traditional singer called John Furlong kept the history alive. We are told that on this very day (hard to believe), seven small fishing cots went out one evening fishing for herring and a freak storm of wind and rain came and them out of the blue. Back then all the men had were oars and when this came, we’re told the women and children watched from the high banks, helpless they got pushed further out to sea. We're told, they did everything to guide them back in but it quickly turned to night and all they could do was pray.
The following day, one of the seven boats was found up the coast and the other six were never seen again. No records, no graves, nothing. Gone.
Back in November 2015, brothers Ned and Joe Kavanagh and myself put up a plaque to mark the 200 anniversary of the tragedy and local man John Furlong sang the song on that day, a squally wet day too, very like the day in 1815. No-one knows how many men were lost as records were not kept and bodies never recovered. Folklore tells us that 30 men drowned that night, however we will never know.
Prior to this stone being erected the only real thing that remembered the event was the song and if John and a handful of others were gone, so too would have this story. John was born and reared nearby and he pieced together his version of the song from what he heard while growing up, mostly from a man called Watt 'The Fiddler' Murphy. Fr. Joe Ranson collected a version from Watt also for his ‘Songs of the Wexford Coast’ but John’s is a fuller version.
I’ve edited up 2 recordings I made of John in Tinnaberna over the years; the first is a windy and wet day and filmed in November 2015 and the other on a sunny day in the summer of 2019. The sound is better in the 2019 recording but I prefer the atmosphere in the 2015 recording as you get a sense of the weather in the song and its great to see local Kilmuckridge people gather that day to remember those who were lost on the 14th of November 1815.
If you have time - listen to this and remember the men lost on that night 210 years ago.
Text: Michael Fortune
