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A view from the Bridge in Fermoy, the river Blackwater looking its best at 6.30am, last Saturday morning June 21, the longest day of the year. Photo: Jim Lysaght

On this, the week-end of Fermoy Regatta all the attention will be on the river, our beautiful Blackwater, our very own jewel in the crown.

What wonderful memories regatta day brings, I still remember the Summer of 1956 when the late Michael Walsh and myself spent our holidays restoring the old pair-boats, the Nip and the Tuck. These two boats had lain dilapidated in the old boat-house for many years; we varnished them, re-rigged them and brought them back to a semblance of what they once had been, all under the eagle eye of our boatman Maurice Cleary.

Finally, we put them back on the water and had great times in them, rowing up to Castlehyde, getting the feel of them, and at the At Home Regatta of that year, after four very tough races, Michael and I won the final of the Pair-Boat Race.

It was really thanks to the workmanship and dedication of Maurice that the boats were restored; Maurice loved the Rowing Club, and was never happier than when he was working on the boats, which at that time were mostly rejects from other clubs.

The boats were heavy and cumbersome, not like the sleek craft of today, and most of them were clinker built, it was thanks to the skill of Maurice and Johnny O'Keeffe that they were fit to be put on the water. I spent many days with both of them putting patches on the boats, the patches would be sealed with copper nails and red lead, they kept out the water, but of course every patch, with resistance to the water slowed down the boat.

In 1955, some members got together to try and get the club up and running again, with their own money they purchased a pair of boats in Kinsale, these were called whaling boats, they were about fifteen feet long, they were heavy but they were stable and we used them for training.

The present club owes a big debt of gratitude to those men who kept rowing alive in Fermoy, for posterity I will try to think of all their names; Dinny Fox, Johnny O'Keeffe, Maurice Cleary, Danny Murphy, Pat Daly, Jim Roche, John Heffernan, Gerdy Hogan, and Ned Hogan, these were the men who also had the foresight to bring Dr. Walter McGuire to the club as coach. It was the Doctor, as we always called him, who introduced the Fairbairn style of rowing to Fermoy, and it was thanks to him that the club recorded its first victory in twenty years at Cappoquin Regatta in 1957.

But, outside the rowing, all of us at the time had a love of the river instilled in us, something that we still have to this day. What memories we have of moonlight trips up to Castlehyde, always being very careful at the Rock, where a whirlpool near the South bank could wreck a boat, were the summers at that time warmer and longer, looking back down the years it seems that they were.

On one very memorable night Danny Byrnes, Pat Breen, Tim China Conroy and I managed to get into the grounds of Castlehyde House, then owned by the McLoughlin family who were publishers in Boston, the family had invited the Boston Symphony Orchestra, who were then on tour in Ireland to play at a gala evening in the house. At that time none of us were into classical music, we loved Buddy Holly and Elvis, but we wanted a glimpse into a world that was so different to ours, and we saw it, glamorous ladies in evening dresses, drinks in hand strolling along the lawns, they waved to us in the boat as we rowed along.

We rowed a little upstream from the house, beached the boat and waited until it got dark, then without using the oars we let the boat slip along below the house. Tying the boat to the branch of a tree, we scrambled up the high bank; we were in, soon pressing our faces up against the windows of the East Wing of the house where the party was in full swing.

It was only a few days later that we were told that there were security guards on duty there that night as many of the ladies were wearing very valuable jewellery. There are so many stories about the river and the people who love it, the fishermen and women, the swimmers and the oars people, maybe we will hear a few more at the regatta on Sunday.

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