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SWANSEA FERRY: Halfpenny rowboats, paddle steamers and the night boat to Cork — the many ferry ages of Swansea

Swansea is once again talking about ferries. A report promising 800,000 visitors and a £600m boost from a high-speed Bristol Channel service is heading for scrutiny — but for older residents, the debate stirs memories of the days when you really could sail from Swansea.

For the best part of four decades, the city had its own international crossing: the night boat to Cork.

But the Cork run was only the most recent of Swansea’s ferry ages. Long before international sailings, ferries were simply how the city’s industrial workers got to work — for more than a century, manpowered rowboats crossed the tidal River Tawe, most famously the White Rock Ferry.

Known as the “halfpenny ferry”, it linked the Hafod copperworks with communities like Foxhole on the east bank, and remained a vital economic link until it closed in the 20th century.

Then came the golden era of the Bristol Channel steamer — and a route that will sound very familiar to anyone following today’s ferry debate.

From the late 1800s, Swansea shipping dynasty Pockett’s ran regular, dependable crossings from Swansea to Ilfracombe in North Devon, with classic paddle steamers and early turbine ships including the Brighton and the Velindra.

Pockett’s passenger operations collapsed with the outbreak of the First World War in 1914, when many of its ships were requisitioned by the Admiralty.

Bristol-based P&A Campbell — the famous White Funnel Fleet — took over the Swansea routes in 1922, running a hugely popular daily summer link to Ilfracombe, berthing in the River Tawe at Pockett’s Wharf and the South Dock Jetty.

Swansea was also their base for day cruises to Lundy Island, Tenby, Minehead and Clovelly, with the purpose-built paddle steamer Glen Gower the mainstay of the Swansea station.

The rise of the motor car, post-war economics and eventually the opening of the Severn Bridge did for the steamers, and the regular paddle steamer era was over by the late 1950s.

The international age began in 1969, when Irish operator B&I Line put its purpose-built ferry Innisfallen on the ten-hour run across the Celtic Sea to Cork, with a reception held aboard the new vessel that April.

The Innisfallen at Swansea in September 1975 (Image: Wolfgang Fricke / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY 3.0)

It ran for a decade before B&I switched its Welsh port to Pembroke Dock in 1979 — and by 1983, Cork’s Welsh connection had died altogether.

What followed was the route’s most colourful chapter. In 1987, five local authorities — Swansea City Council and West Glamorgan County Council among them, alongside three Irish counterparts — formed Swansea Cork Ferries Ltd to bring the crossing back.

The company’s first ship, the Celtic Pride, arrived with grand promises: a swimming pool, sauna, casino and even a chamber orchestra — which, in the event, turned out to be two Polish dance bands.

Passengers didn’t seem to mind. The overnight sailing from Swansea meant a bed or a Pullman seat and arrival in Ireland at a sensible hour, while the daytime return from Cork was treated by many as a cruise.

The Japanese-built Superferry carried the route through most of the 1990s and into the 2000s, complete with its own Irish pub — Paddy Murphy’s — installed on board.

By the time the service ended, Swansea Cork Ferries had carried 2.85 million passengers and 700,000 cars into Cork since 1987.

It stopped abruptly. After selling the Superferry in 2006 and failing to find a replacement, the company never sailed again — with 30 staff in Swansea among nearly 200 who lost their jobs.

The Swansea to Cork ferry preparing to leave Swansea in May 2005 — the service ended the following year (Image: Sionk / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 4.0)

The economic hole was felt on both sides of the Celtic Sea. Irish visitors arriving through the route were estimated to be worth £65m to the Welsh economy in its final year, while a University College Cork study put the annual cost to Cork and Kerry at around €35m.

West Cork’s tourism trade reported a 30% drop in British visitors, and it was two businessmen there who launched the “bring back the Swansea Cork ferry” campaign in 2008.

Remarkably, it worked. A community co-operative raised millions through a pledge scheme, and in March 2010 the Fastnet Line’s MS Julia — ten decks, 300 cabins and room for 1,860 passengers — slipped out of Swansea at ten to ten at night on the route’s first sailing in three and a half years.

It lasted barely two seasons. Sailings were suspended in November 2011, with the company citing “higher than expected fuel prices”, and in February 2012 the West Cork Tourism Co-operative Society confirmed the service was finished for good, blaming state aid rules and red tape for blocking a relaunch.

No passenger ferry has sailed from Swansea since.

The old routes are not entirely gone, though. The Waverley, the world’s last seagoing paddle steamer, still recreates the Swansea to Ilfracombe run on nostalgic summer day trips, and has returned to Tenby’s shores in recent years too.

The Waverley, the world’s last seagoing paddle steamer (Image: Dave souza / Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 2.5)

Passenger ships have not abandoned the port entirely, either. Last month a luxury French expedition liner drew onlookers to the waterfront — one of only two cruise calls scheduled at Swansea all year. Days later, around 400 passengers came ashore to a male voice choir and a traditional band on the quayside.

And Ireland remains within reach of south west Wales: Stena Line sails Fishguard to Rosslare in around three and a half hours — with SailRail through-tickets available from Transport for Wales — while Irish Ferries runs Pembroke Dock to Rosslare in around four, on the very route B&I switched to when it left Swansea in 1979.

The new proposal is a different animal — a fast catamaran across the Bristol Channel to the south west of England rather than a ten-hour night crossing to Ireland. But it is, in truth, the oldest route of all: Pockett’s steamers were carrying Swansea passengers to the Devon coast more than a century ago.

The questions now being asked by councillors scrutinising the plan — who pays, what happens if passenger forecasts fall short, and who carries the risk — are ones Swansea’s ferry history has answered the hard way more than once. The scrutiny committee is expected to examine the report’s assumptions in the coming weeks.

More from Swansea Bay News

SWANSEA FERRY: Report promising 800,000 visitors and £600m heads for scrutiny — as its own numbers face questions
The claims behind the new Bristol Channel ferry plan.

SWANSEA FERRY: Who pays, where does it dock, and how does it hit 60 knots?
Councillors sharpen their questions on the new proposal.

Historic Waverley paddle steamer to get extended Summer Bristol Channel season
The last seagoing paddle steamer returns to Swansea Bay.

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