Two bronze plaques have been commissioned by the Friends of the Waterville Cable Station in Co Kerry. The first has been erected near the cable landing site at Waterville, and the second is due to be erected shortly near the main entrance to the old station, outlining its history.
John W. Mackay, a Dubliner who made his fortune in the US, was the driving force behind the cable station. He took on the all-powerful Western Union and beat it, making his own place in history.
Expert operators, usually single men, were tap-tapping their Morse code messages to Newfoundland, New York, Britain, France and the Azores long before the arrival of the whizz kids at their desk-top computers. In a way, Kerry had its own Website back in 1884. It ceased to exist, which I find extraordinary, only in 1962.
The operators were looked after to persuade them to stay. In those days they were the ones who could seek and get serious money.
The Friends of the Waterville Cable Station include Herb Hogbin, its last superintendent. The chairman of the organisation is Fred Dunne, who worked on the mechanical side. Many others are also involved, motivated by a desire that neither the operation of the station nor its value to the local economy should be forgotten.