Sale hopes buoyed up by Schull gold coast location

BUOYS were toys for the late, west Cork farmer, Tom Sheppard, whose retirement hobby was collecting marine memorabilia — such as a 28’ long navigation marker buoy, one of several heavy buoys which graced the front gates and gardens of his Colla Road home.

A father of six daughters and no sons, the family joke was that with all the girls arriving naturally he had to go out of his way to collect the buoys.

And, collect he did. One rocket-shaped buoy, part of a disparate collection he assembled over a decade and a half and painted a dark bottle green, was kept lit at night, making for a neat guide and marker home along the road for walkers tacking out the way from coastal holiday village Schull’s many pubs in darkness.