History of King's Cove

The lives of the early residents of King's Cove lie practically unrecorded. This is very regrettable. Not one of them seemed to think that their lives were of sufficient interest to record how they lived. Whether that is the correct reason of the absence of records or whether the struggle for existence blotted out every other interest and left them no time for diary-keeping it is impossible to say. There were several Irishmen in the neighbourhood who could have left us a picture of the struggles and hardships of the early settlers. Michael Murphy, Tom Brien and Thomas Lawton-to name only three - had received a fair elementary education in their own country. John Murphy who settled at Keels, was a graduate of Carlow College. The history of what these old settlers thought and suffered is buried with them" The most we could do was to gather together a few stray fragments to illustrate as best we could, the characters of the men who first built their homes in the forest.

We wish to express our deep gratitude for help given by the late Michael Lawton. His early life was passed in the fifties and sixties and he possessed many traditions of the early days.

We are indebted for details of the loss of the Ellen Munn and facts about Southern Head to a manuscript left by the late M. T. Flynn

J. T. LAWTON
P. K. DEVINE