I recently stayed at a Bed and Breakfast in Waterville, which was originally a terminus of the first transatlantic telegraph cable, the owner was able to tell me quite a lot of the history of this fascinating project, does anyone know of any written histories of this event, which has links to Brunel's Great Eastern among other icons of that era

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Regards, Pat Gill
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The Captain of the Great Eastern was Captain Halpin - an Irishman.

He lived in Tinakilly House near Rathnew, Co Wicklow.

Here's an interesting Link:

The Victorian Internet tomstandage.com

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This day in Irish History:
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COUNTRY FIRST

Thanks for that Catalpa, the west coast of Ireland really has a high tech heritage and that stay in the Old Historic Cable house has awakened a keen interest in this heritage for me. From St Brendan to Shannon duty free, Irish people have been very high tech and innovative over time

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Regards, Pat Gill
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I thought the terminus was on Valencia Island. From wikipedia, Foilhommerum Bay, Valentia Island

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Joseph
I stand corrected, Waterville only came into operation in 1884. I should really have read my notes, there is actually a small museum on Valentia with a section devoted to this subject.

The thing that really caught my attention about that first cable was the initial investment, $600,000 was a real money in those days and of course that initial cable broke after a fortnight, but it proved the principle and started a communications revolution

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Regards, Pat Gill
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I think that before the transatlantic cables were laid the ships carrying the news from the States used to be met by a boat out of Cork which used go back to Cork and telegraph Dublin who were able to relay the message on to London through cables under the Irish sea. This is how people first got news of Lincoln's assasination in Europe.

Have to admit that I only saw this on something I saw in an old B/W film on the life of Julius Reuter, so I'm not actually sure if its true or not.

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Now now, don't shout it from the rooftops - it would only make racist bigots and metropolitans question their prejudices, and we can't have that happen now, can we?

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If only our politicians could have faith in our own abilities, we could be a great little nation

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Regards, Pat Gill
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thanks, been there.

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Here's a written account (12 pages) of the transatlantic cable:

American Experience | The Great Transatlantic Cable | People & Events | PBS

I don't think we Irish should get too carried away about our role in this pioneering venture, since the main actors were American, British and, of course, the Scottish physicist Thompson. Geography did the rest by placing us where we are.