Soldier’s Point, or the Case of the Seal’s Head
The market is on Monday; and fairs are held on the Monday next but one before Ash-Wednesday, May 17th, the first Monday in July, the last Monday in August, and the second Mondays in October and December; but the May fair is the only one of importance. At Soldiers’ Point, about a mile and a half below the town, is a coast-guard station, the head of the district of Dundalk, and the residence of the inspecting commander; the district contains also the stations of Greenore, O’Meath, Cooley Point, Dunany Point, and Clogher Head.
From A Topographical Dictionary of Ireland, 1837
Looking at Dundalk from above, on a map maybe or via the old internet, one will find it a stretched-out town. It is as one of the giants of Irish folklore, Finn MacCool maybe, crumbled the centre of the city in his large hands, mashed it together like primordial chewing gum and then pulled Clanbrassil Street, Park Street and Seatown Place out of it with just two fingers, the arteries of the city stretching north towards the river, south towards Dublin, and east towards the sea.
Towards the sea we walked, along Seatown Place and Quay Street past the windmill without sails, where on the 18th of June, 1921, Patrick Watters and his brother John were pulled from their beds by men from the Auxiliary Division of the Royal Irish Constabulary and shot dead; two cross set into the wall next to the Rampart River remember the two young men today. We then walked across the N52 and further on towards the water. The walls, silos and storage buildings of the port to our left and to our right, suddenly, the crumpling hulk of an apartment complex from Celtic Tiger times, boarded up and with water running from smashed windows in one of the of the walled-up staircases, its its ochre walls smeared with coal dust and dirt.
Before turning left in front of the pitch of the O’Mahonys we passed Aiken Barracks of the Irish Army, named after a man who once broke in here by blasting through the walls with mines and who stole 400 rifles that day. Past the pitch we reached the Navy Bank walk, which we had all to ourselves that day. Across the Castletown River and the estuary we could see all along the Cooley Peninsula, with the granite flanks of Slieve Foye looming over the smaller ridges. From the direction of the stadium it sounded like shots were ringing out over the water, but we weren’t sure. It was then that we first saw a dark shape in the water, seemingly swimming upstream against the outgoing tide. We first thought it to be a rat, or a cormorant maybe, but the the seal lifted its head out of the water completely and puffed some water from its nostrils. We considered it a good omen and walked on. Past another ghost house from boom times we came, and a sprayed marker indicating the high tide in January 2014.
Past the water filtering plant we walked, where an outflow beneath the water created a whirlpool that reminded us of a large fish or swirling below, complete with seagulls bumping up and down on the waves around the whirlpool, and past the unmanned bird observatory. We then came to Soldier’s Point, where the river flows out into the estuary and where the statue of the sea god Manannán mac Lir sat askew on a block of concrete that seemed to topple any moment. There is a light for incoming ships, a telescope for visitors and, on the small wall, plaques for both the dead and the living.
There are illustrations of the ‘Birds of the Castletown Estuary’, and a list of safety instructions. And there are two memorial plaques, one for Stephen Fergus, ‘who died beyond this point on 12th February 2012’ while bringing assistance to a stranded friend, and one for John Lambe and James Woods, ‘drowned within sight of this point while lighting river lights on the 10th Feb 1936’. February was often a grim month at Soldier’s Point, it seemed. We then turned around and headed back towards town, the seal nowhere to be seen.
