From A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837
COPELAND ISLANDS, a cluster of three islands, situated at the south entrance of Belfast Lough, and in that part of the parish of BANGOR which is in the barony of ARDES, county of DOWN, and province of ULSTER, called respectively Copeland, Lighthouse and Mew islands. They derived their common name from the family of the Copelands, who settled here in the time of John de Courcey, in the 12th century, and of whose descendants, some are still to be found in the tract called Ballycopeland, on the mainland. Copeland island, the largest of the three, called also Big island and Neddrum, is 2 miles (N. N. E.) from Donaghadee, and about one mile from the mainland; it comprises about 200 acres, and contains 15 houses; near a small inlet, called Chapel bay, are the ruins of a church, with a burial-ground.
About halfway between this island and the mainland is a rock, called the Deputy, on which a buoy is placed; and at the west end of the island is the Katikern rock, always above water, from which run two ledges about a cable's length, and on which a stone beacon has been erected. There is good anchorage on the west side of the island, and in Chapel bay on the south of Katikern, in from two to three fathoms of water, in all winds but those from the south-east. Lighthouse, or, as it is also called, Cross island, is about 1 mile (N. E.) from Copeland island, and is one furlong in length and about half a furlong in breadth, comprising about 24 acres. The Lighthouse from which it takes its name is a square tower, 70 feet high to the lantern, which displays a light to the southeast, to guide vessels from the north and south rocks, which are 3 ½ leagues distant, and to the north-west, to guard them from the Hulin or Maiden rocks lying between the mouths of Larne and Glenarm.
The lighthouse is situated in lat. 54° 41' 15" (N.), and lon. 5° 31' (W.), and the light is plainly seen at Portpatrick and the Mull of Galway, in Scotland, from the latter of which it is 10 leagues distant. Mew island is a quarter of a furlong (E.) from Lighthouse island, and comprises about 10 acres of rocky pasture; it lies very low, and is extremely dangerous to mariners; in the sound between it and Copeland island is a flat rock with only three feet of water on it, called the Pladdens; and a rapid tide sets through the sound. Off this island the Enterprise, of Liverpool, a homeward-bound vessel from the coast of Guinea, was totally wrecked in 1801; she is said to have had on board £40,000 in dollars, which, with all her cargo, lay buried in the sea, till 1833, when Mr. Bell, by means of a diving apparatus, succeeded in recovering about 25,000 of the dollars, five brass guns, and other valuable property.
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Truelove's Journal: A Bookshop Novella
From a sad, comfortless childhood Giles Truelove developed into a reclusive and uncommunicative man whose sole passion was books. For so long they were the only meaning to his existence. But when fate eventually intervened to have the outside world intrude upon his life, he began to discover emotions that he never knew he had.
A story for the genuine booklover, penned by an Irish bookseller under the pseudonym of Ralph St. John Featherstonehaugh.
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Annals of the Famine in Ireland
Annals of the Famine in Ireland, by Asenath Nicholson, still has the power to shock and sadden even though the events described are ever-receding further into the past. When you read, for example, of the poor widowed mother who was caught trying to salvage a few potatoes from her landlord's field, and what the magistrate discovered in the pot in her cabin, you cannot help but be appalled and distressed.
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Ireland's Welcome to the Stranger
This book, the prequel to Annals of the Famine in Ireland cannot be recommended highly enough to those interested in Irish social history. The author, Mrs Asenath Nicholson, travelled from her native America to assess the condition of the poor in Ireland during the mid 1840s. Refusing the luxury of hotels and first class travel, she stayed at a variety of lodging-houses, and even in the crude cabins of the very poorest. Not to be missed!
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
Henry Ford Jones' book, first published in 1915 by Princeton University, is a classic in its field. It covers the history of the Scotch-Irish from the first settlement in Ulster to the American Revolutionary period and the foundation of the country.
The ebook is available for download in .mobi (Kindle), .epub (iBooks, etc.) and .pdf formats. For further information on the book and author see details ».
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