At the weekend I made a well overdue quick visit to Dunmore East, a beautiful fishing village and now holiday resort on the east coast of Waterford. On the cliffs near the harbour to the west of the village itself, the bare rocks and patches of thin grass were studded with flashes of pink from the just-opening flowers of thrift (Armeria maritima). Seeing plants in the wild often helps to understand why they do or don’t thrive in the garden and when you see it perched on rocks well above the sea you can see that it needs perfect drainage and doesn’t mind a bit of wind or salt spray!

If you have it struggling in clay soil or in shade you can now understand why it is looking miserable.

Every twist and turn on the road along the coast revealed more of  the charm of this lovely village though my attention was focussed on the coast. Although Dunmore East was an important fishing village for hundreds of years, with more than 50 fishing boats based in the area in the 1770s, it was really developed in 1812 when Westminster (London government) decided to develop the village as a major port for the Royal Mail. It was not long before trade was moved to Waterford but the harbour continues to be used for fishing.

To the north is the area known as Crooke and the area is famous for being the origin of the phrase coined by Oliver Cromwell who said he would get his troops into Waterford (that Waterford would fall) (in 1649) by ‘Hook or by Crooke’. You can see Hook Lighthouse in the distance, on the other side of the Barrow Estuary, in the photo below.

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