Time to salute the lonely sentinel over Limerick port

Historian Dr Tadhg Moloney shares the fascinating background to the decision to erect a turret clock on the docks in Limerick city, which now watches over a once-thriving port

On July 21, 1880 the foundation stone of Limerick’s harbour turret clock was laid – the first such clock in Ireland, a phial containing a record of the ceremony and the names of those attending being inserted in the stone.

No representatives of the dock workers attended, though the clock’s main purpose was to regulate their working hours in a period when dock labourers were poorly paid and in no position to buy watches.

These workers had relied on the four-faced clock of Bannatynes’ Corn Stores, but when this was destroyed by fire in July 1878, the dock workers were left without a timepiece: they knew the hours for commencing and finishing work through the ringing of the Redemptorist Church’s Angelus bell, but had no means of knowing when to break for breakfast or dinner.

In April 1880 the Harbour Board decided that Limerick dock needed its own public clock which would strike the hours, and advertised for tenders.

As the clock would be too heavy to be built over the Harbour Master’s office, a tower was be specially built for it, close to the dry docks.

Designed in ‘the Italian style’, this tower was to be 60 feet high, surmounted by a 5-foot weather guage, and with four clock faces each just over 6 feet in diameter.

By mid-June 1880, bids came from clockmakers in Birmingham, Leeds, London, Manchester, Cork, Dublin and Limerick itself.

The Limerick bidders were Richard Wallace, Conrad Cromer, and L. E. Ryan, but Ryan sent his to the wrong official, it was disqualified.

Ultimately, the lowest bid, that of Lund and Blockley of London, was accepted, despite objections that local firms could carry out repairs more conveniently and cheaply if problems arose after the twelve months warranty had expired.

By mid-July 1881, the tower clock (still under warranty) was striking the hours and chiming the quarters, being ‘distinctly heard from a great distance’ but after six months there were complaints that it was ‘down two or three days a week’.

Lund and Blockley opposed any local clockmaker working on it, though eventually agreeing to H. L Stewart doing the repairs.

By September 1882 the clock was again reported to be ‘entirely defective and quite unfit for Harbour use’ with ongoing mutual accusations of breach of contract between the Harbour Board and Lund and Blockley. By mid-1884 Blockley, one of the firm’s partners, visited Limerick and undertook to honour the original contract.

Thereafter, the clock continued to give satisfaction, despite suffering some surface damage in 1901 when someone for rifle target practice, pierced the south face dial with three or more holes from a distance of around 300 yards.

Sixteen years after the installation of the new works the Harbour Board contracted with local clockmakers for the clock’s ongoing upkeep and regulation - Michael Spring (1900), George Knight (1916), both at £5 per year, and A. W. Moorhead (1929) at £8 , rising to £10 within a year.

A local contractor was also employed in 1908 and 1918 to re-enamel the four faces for £13.

Also, the board had at some time in the past decided that the clock was such a valuable asset to the port that it insured it for £750 annually against fire, increasing this amount by £250 in 1931.

However, by 1935 the clock was malfunctioning, the chimes being described as a ‘monstrosity’. Some repairs must have been carried out, but no details are available up to 1955 when damage (the nature of which is unclear) was caused to the clock’s west face and its works.

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Repairs proved difficult as the machinery was ‘old and worn’ and as Lund and Blockley no longer operated in London, the clock was dismantled in 1957 and sent to John Smith and Sons of Derby who also repaired Tait’s clock and who now contracted to maintain the harbour clock for £9.10s per annum.

They retained the contract until 1997 when, following their recommendation, it was converted to automatic operation.

Despite proposals in the 1990s to move the clock to a new location – either the centre of the Shannon Bridge roundabout or the site now occupied by the skate park, considerations of cost and safety prevailed and the Harbour Clock still stands as a lonely sentinel, towering over a once-thriving port.