sails

I'll admit that I'm coming up blank for the moment. (Though I'm sure it will turn out to be somewhere completely obvious!)

Sharon Corbet Has everyone gone on holiday today?

Shadows, are we looking North East? Rapids/waterfall in the river which flows South into the harbour. Huge convent or maybe a barracks on the hill. Could it be Ballyshannon? I believe it is, the "convent" is the old workhouse. General View, Ballyshannon from the Eblana collection. We are looking a bit South of East

Niall McAuley is amazing! And so is Flickr! This via Aidan Devlin about the Mall pier / jetty / quay, centre frame - " ... This jetty was also the site where many thousands of passengers and emigrants who left Ireland during the nineteenth-century (particularly during the years of the Great Famine c. 1845 - 1851 and in the decades afterwards) on their way to North America etc. The port/harbour at Ballyshannon was hindered by the presence of a dangerous sandbar in the estuary, which meant that the larger ships could not come into the port but had to move the goods/passengers to and from smaller boats to reach the shore (goods were also regularly unloaded at Killybegs - then a subsidiary port of Ballyshannon and later transported to Ballyshannon by smaller vessels). This quay was apparently constructed or remodelled for a Dr. Sheil prior to 1836 and was later purchased from the Sheil family by the Ballyshannon Harbour Commissioners (for £137-10-00) in 1888. Works were carried out on the harbour by Robert Stevenson (1772 - 1850), a Scottish engineer, in 1835 – 6. The harbour/quay appears to have declined in importance by the end of the nineteenth-century. ..." Edit - above quote originally from www.buildingsofireland.ie/buildings-search/building/40852...

Reverse-ish view with dating information -

Ordnance Survey 6" and 25" maps show a ferry running across the lake from the mouth of the river just downstream from Virginia: 25" map: arcg.is/qL58D0 Lots of info in a Facebook post here: www.facebook.com/Muntcomm/posts/information-on-the-lough-...

I see the Landing Stage on the 25", but can't get there with streetview. Here is a Bing aerial view. The 25" marks the ferry route, North-South across Lough Ramor. Streetview not great from the Southern side either. There's feck all on the southern shore, I can't imagine this was a commercial ferry, maybe for tourists?

Some history and a map of Lough Ramor ferry. www.facebook.com/Muntcomm/posts/information-on-the-lough-... It also includes names of ferrymen.

arcg.is/nmCXv on the 25"

From a random cached Facebook page (large grain of salt needed): However, in the 1821 Census, Michael Flinn from Coronagh, Munterconnaught was listed as the “ferryman of Lough Ramor”.​ ... We do know that when the land on which the town of Virginia is built was assigned to Captain John Ridgeway as part of the Plantation of Ulster in the early 17th century, there were conditions attached to the grant for the founding of a town, to include a school, a church, a market-place, and in addition, the establishment of a ferry service. The ferry service would connect Munterconnaught to Virginia.​ It was proposed that the town of Virginia be built at Ballaghanea but it was decided that it should be built at the narrowest point of the lake and therefore the shortest way to cross by boat. The ferry was an important amenity for the people of Munterconnaught for shopping or socialising in the local town of Virginia. It was a thriving ferry service where farmers took their goods to the market in Virginia and returned home with their groceries. On the Virginia side, the locals could enjoy the woods on the southern side of the lake by making the short boat trip there. The round trip was 2d. Two cottages, one on each side of Lough Ramor, were built around the middle of the 19th century. The cottage on the Munterconnaught side was for a gamekeeper while the Gate lodge along the Virginia lake shore and close to the ferry landing area was for a boatman or ferryman that operated the service. Many ferrymen names are remembered like an Englishman called Stephens, John Sweeney from Cork; a local man named Preston; John O’Boyle from Donegal, Peter Carrol and Jack Delaney from Mountnugent. The last man to operate the ferry crossing was a man called Matt Donohoe from Belturbet. According to Cavan County Council archives, a notice on the 21 May 1940 was made to the fact that Lord Headfort had sold Virginia lodge and demesne and had no further use for the Lough Ramor Ferry. However, he would not like to discontinue the Ferry without giving interested parties an opportunity to form a committee to operate it. The ferry service came to an end in the late 1950s. The road leading to Lough Ramor on the southern side is still known as the Boat Road.

Streetview:

maps.app.goo.gl

it still looks very much the same today

There have been a few advancements since then!

"GASKELL BEERSBRIDGE R"[oad] on the side of the cart ...
Flowerpots ? It's Bill and Ben the Flowerpot Men !

Something 1885 in the ironwork under the second lamp.
Earliest date?