The cable connecting Ireland to the Americas

Analysis: the first transatlantic cables which went from Valentia, Co Kerry to Newfoundland in Canada were a major engineering challenge

By Cornelia Connolly, Tony Hall and Jim Lenaghan, NUI Galway

In 1832, Samuel F.B. Morse conceived the basic idea of an electromagnetic telegraph. This enabled communication over more than a few miles, where a message sent was obtained by the receiver in a relatively swift time. Indeed Morse was one of a number of early proponents of a cable linking continents and other champions included Cyrus West Field and Frederic Newton Gisborne.

The transatlantic cable was pivotal in the desire and ability to communicate between any two points of great distance. It altered personal, commercial and political communications worldwide for all time and the laying of the first cable occurred as Ireland emerged from the Great Famine.

The 19th Knight of Kerry, Sir Peter Fitzgerald, resided on Valentia Island and was keen to establish the location as a seaport and communication hub. The Atlantic Telegraph Company operated and employed many English gentlemen and engineers in the station house and in the laying of the cable, with locals in supporting roles. Navy ships the USS Niagara and the British HMS Agamemnon were loaned by their governments for the project. The cable itself typically consisted of copper wires wrapped in a protected tar, hemp and steel, twisted thereby protecting it from marine elements.

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From RTÉ Radio 1's Morning Ireland, Professor Al Gillespie on the application to make Valentia Island a UNESCO World Heritage Site on the 150th anniversary of the laying of the first functioning transatlantic cable

The first attempt of laying of the cable was made on August 5th 1857 amidst great celebration. The initial plan was to lay the cable from Valentia to Trinity Bay in Newfoundland, Canada. The historic attempt was covered by reporters who dispatched long accounts of the event and descriptions of Kerry weather and scenery, and artists attended sketching the scenes. The cable ships sailed on August 7th, but the attempt failed when the Niagara broke the cable approximately 280 miles out.

The second attempt was made in June 1858, with the two ships setting sail from the mid-Atlantic, the aim being to bring the cable in on the island at Knightstown, but the attempt again failed. On July 29th 1858 they made another attempt, the ships again starting from a mid-point and travelling to their respective continents. This time, it worked and Ireland and Canada were connected on August 4th and 5th 1858 when the Niagara docked at Trinity Bay and the Agamemnon landed at Valentia Harbour.

On August 16th, the first message was sent, followed by a message between Queen Victoria and US president James Buchanan: "Glory to God in the highest, and on earth, peace, good will to men." Reception over the cable was poor with each character taking over 2 minutes to transmit, and the first message taking approximately 18 hours to send.

From RTÉ Archives, RTÉ News footage of 1963 repairs carried out by the Canadian ship Lord Kelvin on the transatlantic cables at Valentia Island

Within three weeks, the cable was damaged due to high voltage and ceased to work. In 1865 they tried again, with a new improved cable, tripling the copper core with insulation to make it 100 times more effective. Foilhomurrum Bay was chosen as the location where the cable would be brought ashore, beside an old Cromwellian fort opposite Port Magee. The Great Eastern was the largest ship in the world at the time and chartered for the venture.

Again there were a number of failed attempts, but the Great Eastern sailed west from Valentia Island on July 13th 1866, successfully laid a telegraph cable and docked at Newfoundland on July 27th. After laying 1600 nautical miles of cable, a permanent electrical communication link across the Atlantic was established. The first commercial cable was in operation.

In later years, additional cables were laid from Valentia and new cable stations opened in Ballinskelligs (1874) and Waterville (1884), all positioning Co. Kerry as a focal point for global communications. By the 1900s, the Valentia station alone employed more than 40 telegraph workers, housing their families and support staff.

From RTÉ Radio 1's Drivetime, Grainne McPolin reports from Ballybunion, Co Kerry on Marconi Day 2019, the centenary of the first Marconi radio transmission from Ireland to Canada

The pace of technological change subsequently accelerated, with communications converging rapidly. In 1896, a 21 year old student Guglielmo Marconi took the first significant step by successfully transmitting radio signals over a few kilometres, thus inventing the radio.

Another of Marconi's greatest achievements was in engineering a competitive alternative to the transatlantic cable when he received a message sent from England to St. John’s, Newfoundland via radio transmission in 1901. The message was the Morse-code signal for the letter 'S' and travelled 2,000 miles from Cornwall (via Clifden, Co. Galway) to Newfoundland. A transatlantic radio-telegraph station in Clifden was officially opened in October 1907, when commercial signalling commenced between Clifden and Glace Bay, Canada.

The early transatlantic cable systems were severely constrained by restricted mobility, low capacity, limited service and poor speech quality. The equipment in use was heavy, bulky, expensive and susceptible to interference. Nevertheless, laying a cable 3,500 miles across the Atlantic ocean was a major engineering challenge and an unimaginable achievement in telecommunications in the mid 1850s. It also established Ireland as a transcontinental epicentre and communication hub in the Victorian age.

Dr Cornelia Connolly is a Lecturer and Researcher in educational design, education technology and computer science education at the School of Education at NUI Galway. Dr Tony Hall is a senior lecturer in Educational Technology and a design-based researcher in the School of Education at NUI Galway. Jim Lenaghan is Chief Technical Officer at NUI Galway where he manages the technical support for teaching, learning and research at the School of Education.

The views expressed here are those of the author and do not represent or reflect the views of RTÉ

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