South-West was haven for piracy and prostitution

Piracy, prostitution and the pub trade were rife in the South-West in the 16th century when the area from Roaring Water Bay in West Cork and as far as Dingle in Co Kerry was a haven for swashbuckling pirates and bustling local trade.

The subject is very much untapped, and archaeology connected with the pirates who moved en masse from Cornwall and Devon in the reign of James I to escape tighter laws in England, is often unrecognised, according to Connie Kelleher, an archaeologist with the underwater archaeology unit of the National Monuments Service.

Up to 1,000 pirates were present between 1603 and the 1630s and steps, caves and other pirate lore are being uncovered by Ms Kelleher as part of her doctoral thesis. Little or no archaeological work has been done on the pirates’ presence, but a cursory walk of a ploughed field had uncovered shards of a 16th-century Tuscan oil lamp, likely brought in by the pirates, she said.