telegraph

telegraph. The electric telegraph, invented in 1837, came to Ireland in 1866 with the establishment by the Anglo‐American Telegraph Co. of a permanent cable link between Valentia Island and Newfoundland. Three stations in all were set up in Kerry, chosen as the westernmost part of Europe. In 1874 Anglo‐American opened a second station at Ballinskelligs. A third was put into operation in 1885 at Waterville by the American‐owned Commercial Cable Co. By the end of the century, Kerry was linked to Newfoundland, Nova Scotia, Britain, Germany, and France. In 1911 Ballinskelligs and Valentia were taken over by the Western Union Telegraph Co. of America. The Irish cable stations were now part of the worldwide communications network called the ‘All Red Routes’. During the First World War, the cable stations were subject to government censorship. The war led to a vast increase in cable traffic and staff numbers at Valentia rose to 200 working round‐the‐clock shifts. In 1919 the British government bought Ballinskelligs but the station was closed in 1922 and its functions moved to Penzance. Valentia and Waterville stations remained in operation until the mid‐1960s, when modern advances in telecommunications rendered them obsolete.

Peter Collins