Narrow Water

by Ian Sherry of Rostrevor, Northern Ireland
photos by Stasia Sherry

Narrow Water has defined a border in Ireland from ancient times. I gather a little like your Rio Grande. It’s been a documented border for nigh on a thousand years. This stretch of water where Carlingford Lough narrows to join the Newry River (two hundred yards at high tide; twenty yards at low tide) is a townland boundary; a county boundary; a provincial boundary; a boundary between the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland; and now the boundary between Great Britain and the European Union.

It’s a stretch of water I know very well. Three mile along the lough shore from Rostrevor, I’ve passed its Castle Keep – on foot, by bike, by car, by bus, by train, all my life. And I’ve crossed the water by rowing boat. My mother was friendly with the boat man’s daughter and as a small child she’d take me with her to be ferried across to what was then known as The Irish Free State. The boat man would keep a weather eye for Customs men – I think it’s fair to say we were passive smugglers. From a little shop on the far side we’d bring back groceries at that time rationed in The North. Sugar, dried fruit for baking, that sort of thing. And provisions were cheaper in ‘The South.’

But I was to know real smugglers. Men who swam herds of cattle and horses across The Narrows and of course bales of plug tobacco and barrels of whiskey. My father, his brothers and nephews – artists, sign writers, house painters – too crossed here, their bicycles, ladders and paint on the prow of the boat. Painting and decorating pubs in Omeath and Carlingford on the south side of the lough.

Curiously as a jobbing surveyor (years later) I’d work in the very same pubs. Drawing little maps of the area within the premises where it was legal to sell and consume alcohol. I was delighted to find my uncle Jim’s artistry still there. My cousin Eddie’s story: A high quality mirror and frame, about to be thrown out; from the ‘splashes’ of paint to hand, Jim camouflaged its crack with a climbing flower. Seventy years later it’s still on the pub’s wall.

Here on the northern shore of The Narrows is the old castle of Narrow Water built on Duncarrig – the Rock of the Fort – which juts out into the water where the Clanrye River meets Carlingford Lough. The stone built Castle and Keep has been a stronghold commanding the water pass to Newry for a thousand years. The Keep an attached fortified area protecting livestock and servants for the Tower. As I stand on the living rock – the foundation of the fortress – and look across the ribbon of water I reflect that the military presence in the castle itself has gone since the seventeenth century. (Cannon fire making such fortifications easily breached.)

The Newry Inland Canal (opened 1742) – its lock gates a mile farther along – afforded shipping from Newry to the ‘New World.’ A chat with my friend Chris the Librarian in the Newry library was enlightening. He very generously gave me photocopies of two shipping orders. One from Newry to Philadelphia on 3rd October 1779: ‘Shipped (On the good ship Jupiter) by the Grace of God – Four packs linen cloth.’ And the other, December 1769: At Anchor in the River Delaware (The good ship Sally) bound for Newry – ‘Fifty half hogs heads of Flax Seed.’ A combination of a short growing season and flax being pulled at the optimum time to make good linen meant we imported seed from America.

It’s incredible to think that through these Narrows small sailing ships (my ancestors often on board) set out on the hazardous six to perhaps ten week voyage to America. We have a family story of a sailing ship bound for America becalmed for days in ‘The Lough;’ distraught relatives rowing out to replenish supplies.

And now when The Narrows are at their most tranquil; when all the commerce – ferry, railway, shipping – has gone, a brand new exciting prospect is about to begin. A bridge is to be built across Narrow Water joining the Carlingford Mountains in the south with The Mourne Mountains in the north.

Daydreaming on The Narrows, the Celtic Rio Grande:
A Viking ship glides through the pass, bound for Newfoundland:
Its oars the hooves of the ancient elk, its sails the great beasts horns:
Its prow the pillar of an Irish harp, O’Carolan* performs:
His fingers o’er the strings do stray; to play ‘The Dawning of the Day.’

*Turlough O’Carolan (1670-1738): Legendary blind Celtic harper, composer, singer.