meetingofthewaters

Trailer for the series Ballykissangel (about an English priest who gets appointed to a parish in Ireland) www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qr6gFZsEmuE The bridge can be seen at about 30 seconds, followed by the church.

I won't be saying anything of value about the photograph but I've been through Avoca many times on my bike while on holiday and staying either near or in Arklow. I love the place.

A screenshot from Ballykissangel Behind The Scenes Part One which explains why they chose Avoca, despite it being nothing like the village described in the script.

Do you know there is an Avoca, Tasmania?

There is an earlier Cabinet photo from exactly the same spot. Thought it was the same day, but no - catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000334422

I checked in the Thom's Directories and the Rabaiotti Bros. don't appear until 1910 at no. 49 Amiens Street (for a couple of years before that, an Angelo Santi worked out of that address). The Rabaiotti's are listed as Merchants in 1910 and 1911. By 1914, they've expanded into no. 50 next door and are listed as Confectioners also.

www.census.nationalarchives.ie/reels/nai000193785/ rabaiotti family in 1911 but very much Fish Merchants.

There were Rabaiottis in Swansea when I lived there in the 1980s. I think they ran a café.
Flickr confirms they are still there.


Most of the well-known Italian cafe dynasties in South Wales came from the Bardi region in the 1920s/1930s.

I wonder if the Irish Rabiottis are from the same part of Italy?

Streetview, OS 25" map link at GeoHive.

Describing the Italian cafe influx into South Wales www.walesonline.co.uk/news/local-news/proud-history-valle... This sentence struck me. "Various members of the Rabaiotti families also had cafes and ice-cream carts on the streets well before 1907." Perhaps the Irish ones came via S Wales.

I think that might be Castle Howard, Co Wicklow, in the distance which may indicate that the photograph was taken from the front garden of Rockmount House: maps.osi.ie/publicviewer/#V2,719234,683246,11,9 Streetview: www.google.ie/maps/@52.8869042,-6.2327818,3a,75y,105.16h,...

Flickr is sometimes amazing ! In 1841 via Mark Bennett [https://www.flickr.com/photos/94270871@N08/11464736066/]And in 2006 via john Kenny

Rory Sherlock There is a similarish view here in the Valentine Collection.

Just for interest, here's an advertising poster featuring Castle Howard from Shell in 1932.

And a postcard with the same view called "Castle Howard - overlooking the Meeting of the Waters, Vale of Avoca".

"There is not in the wide world A valley so sweet As that vale in whose bosom The bright waters meet" - Thomas Moore Is it any wonder that Irish emigrants become maudlin and sentimental about their homeland when they have images and poetry like this haunting their consciousnesses?

Meeting of the Waters, Avoca, Co. Wicklow (Lawrence Collection) - catalogue.nli.ie/Record/vtls000326163