EIRE sign from WWII re-discovered in Wexford

An EIRE sign has been re-discovered in County Wexford…

During World War II, large “EIRE” signs were placed along Ireland’s coast to signal the country’s neutrality to aircraft flying overhead. Made from whitewashed stones and visible from the air, they helped prevent accidental attacks and aided navigation for lost pilots, especially those from the Allied forces.

A total of 83 of these signs were put up along the coast of Ireland. The number beside the sign was used as a guide/marker too, especially for US planes flying overhead.

Wexford historian, Michael Fortune, had planned to re-discover the EIRE sign off Cahore Point in Wexford in late 2020 – but Covid-19 put a halt to those plans:

“Back in late January 2020 I organised a group of people to help me re-discover a piece of WW2 history near where I grew up at Cahore Point here in Wexford.”

“I’d located an aerial photo from a man called Ozzy Kelly and on a wet and windy morning a group of us, young and old, went looking. It didn’t take long and in less than an hour we had found number ’11’ – the number which identified the Lookout Post and alerted pilots flying over Ireland as to their location. There are 82 or so of these around the country, as I used to fish under these rocks as a child but never knew it was there. After finding it we’d all the best plans to do it up – but Covid came and got in the way and after that it just got parked up,” Fortune said.

Recently, Fortune, Sean, and Owen met again with another bunch of volunteers from the Kilmuckridge Macra eager to redisvoer the lost EIRE sign. As he knew the co-ordinates, the group were able to re-discover the lost EIRE sign within ten minutes, Fortune told RTÉ Radio 1. The Kilmuckridge Macra met up and pulled the sod off it and revealed the R and part of the I and E.

“At 7pm, I met up with two lads, Seán O’Brien and Owen J Dunbar (one of the men who was out in 2020). Sean is local and we wanted to show him where the 11 was. I had the exact coordinates thanks to the photos on my phone, so it was just a matter of walking to the spot. A few bangs of a spade identified the 11 and it’s there as clear as day. However, when we were out we said we’d see if we could find the actual ÉIRE sign text. Looking at the old aerial photo from the 1940s, we were able to gauge the spot.”

It was sheer joy for the bunch of Wexford lads who had rediscovered a piece of their county’s past:

“To be honest, we thought it was gone as there was a lot of slippage of soil on the bank however we were surprised. Within a few minutes of finding the location, we pulled off about a foot of loose topsoil/brush and there she was. We were delighted with ourselves and hopefully now we’ve successfully found them, we can move forward with a plan,” Fortune said.

Some of the EIRE sign has been eroded away since. However, one such plan for the group is to try and restore the number 11 and the EIRE sign. The hope is to receive funding from the Wexford County Council to restore the historical landmark.

For more information on restored EIRE signs, you can check out the website ‘Eire Markings’ available at: http://eiremarkings.org/category/condition/restored/

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