placenamesBallymacaw
Baile Mhac Dháith
Ballymacaw’s coastguard station belonged to an early network around the Waterford coast, and its men appear in records of remarkable nineteenth-century rescues.
The name
These Irish name elements are associated with this record in the Logainm glossary.
An element’s translation is a clue, rather than a complete explanation of the name. Its form and meaning depend on local history and the full Irish name.
Recorded forms
- Baile Mhac Dháith · Irish · main form · validated name
- Ballymacaw · English · main form
Place & story
An early coastguard station
Ballymacaw appears among the Waterford stations recorded in the coastguard’s London head-office book for 1819–20. The specialist history Coastguards of Yesteryear places it alongside Ardmore Head, Helvick Head, Bunmahon and the Islands of Kane. This documentary trail takes the station’s history back to the early nineteenth century, and connects the small bay with a wider system of coastal patrols. [2]
John Weblin and the Prince Regent
John Weblin, a boatman attached to Ballymacaw station, received a silver medal for a rescue on 22 June 1839. The Prince Regent had been wrecked in very rough weather. According to the RNLI’s station history, Weblin swam through the surf carrying a rope to the vessel. The line enabled forty people, including men, women and children, to be brought to safety. [3]
The Queen of Commerce
The Queen of Commerce was driven into Ballymacaw Bay in January 1862. A line floated from the wreck offered a possible connection with the shore. Coastguard chief boatman John Donovan and fisherman James Gough swam from the rocks through heavy surf to secure it. Both received RNLI silver medals for the rescue. The episode shows how lifesaving here could depend on a rope from shore rather than a lifeboat reaching the vessel. [4] [3]
Geographic information
- Place type
- Population centre
- County
- Waterford
- Barony
- Gaultiere
- Civil parish
- Rathmoylan
- Coordinates
- 52.13916, -7.05050 (approximate)
- Logainm ID
- 1414596 ↗
Sources & further reading
- Logainm.ie — Ballymacaw. Place names and geographic record, licensed under CC BY 4.0.
- Irish Coastguard: Stages of Development · Coastguards of Yesteryear, research from Admiralty establishment books
- Tramore station history:1839 and1862 medal awards · Royal National Lifeboat Institution
- Three Terrible Days, Jan1862 · Andrew Doherty, Tides and Tales
- Ballymacaw Cove, County Waterford illustration: based on a Ballymacaw Cove, County Waterford (22 August 2009) by David Hawgood. AI-assisted watercolour and ink adaptation; cream paper margins added, incidental clutter omitted and fine details simplified. Licence: CC BY-SA 2.0.
Name record retrieved 2026-10-25 · Source record modified 2012-02-16. How this page was prepared.