Hysterical Greystones

Velinheli & Reciprocity Shipwrecked Oct 1910 Colourised Colin Doyle

n GG’s early, sunny and funny days, we were lucky enough to have the groovy Gary Acheson dig up some of the town’s more curious historical nuggets.

Although based in Trumpland, Gary’s love for his hometown meant that he was always exploring our town’s deep, often delightful and occasionally dubious past.

Gary in the 1980s

A gift the lad no doubt got from his history-loving dad.

Over the years, Gary created a maze of wonderful local stories from the 1880s and ’90s and beyond, from nude nutters rampaging through Redford, a lonesome boatman finding no shelter in Greystones, Cliff Walk erosion unearthing an early cremation burial site, the curious case of the missing sandbanks, getting drunk on goat’s whey in Blacklion, the ballad of John Doyle and the first ship built in the town, the Christmas 1896 earthquake that left the town rattled, the odd location of our very first coast guard station, the fall and fall of the North Beach cottages, the 1797 duel between Lord Meath and Richard Gore of Sea View House, some 1822 smuggler’s blues in Kilcoole (where else?), how the town has inspired plenty of the write stuff, how three of the Doyle family lost their lives at the harbour during a rescue mission, how Blacklion got its name, and how Sky Rocket Jack was a real cool Coolagad cat.

And let’s not forget the man’s detailed diary of our harbour’s rise and fall. Or that very first Blast.

And then there were the fun-sized, bite-sized Know Your Trivia one-liners covering the owner of phone number Greystones 1, the unearthing of the world’s oldest musical instruments at a Charlesland dig, and our first-ever cinema, run by Mr Hibbles, in his Sidmonton Road shed. Check out the five volumes of cheeky Mick nuggets here.

You can go explore Gary’s Blasts From The Past and his trivia round-ups right about here.