1964 FIRST DRIVE OFF AND DRIVE ON SERVICE IN IRELAND (ROSSLARE HARBOUR)

In 1964 the St.David had a new door put in her port side, to use a side-loading ramp built in the side of the port, this new side-loading ramp was built in 1960 and was open on the 9 May 1965. At the outer berth of the pier, part of the wall had to be removed to make way for a new side-loading ramp, the wall was about 3 feet wide and jack harmers were used to break away the area to fit the new ramp. One of the men who worked doing this job told me that it was hard work, one man would take turns to use the air jack hammers to break in the very hard concreate, in the morning when the mail boat was docked a breakfast would be lowered by rope to the men working there, a breakfast well earned I would say, that man was Billy Thomkins, the other man was Tommy Kane. This side-loading ramp cater for cars and carvans but it was insufficient to cater for large Artics and trucks. The next stage was to build a tunnel under the pier to connect to the new side-loading ramp, sand had to removed by men with shovels, when this was done a large cement base was placed, this base would be the new roadway in the tunnel. Walls were then built on each side and then it was covered over with renforced concreate, the mouth of the tunnel came out at the platform, when cars came out of the tunnel they would make their way along the pier wall to the mainland. To get the cars over to mainland one of the sets of railway lines along the viaduct was taken up and a new road was built. New car parks and compounds were built on the mainland, along with new Customs Buildings.On the 9 May 1965 the then Minister for Transport and Power Erskine Childers open the new side-loading service in the port of Rosslare Harbour, the first drive on and drive off service in Ireland.