Crookhaven Harbour is dominated by the huge crumbling remains of a monument to the advent of the motor-age, not in Ireland, but in another country altogether: Great Britain.

The end of the First World War saw a huge increase in the use and consequent manufacturing of motor vehicles in Europe and particularly Britain which like France, Italy and Germany, was at the forefront of the development of the motor car.

By the time that motor cars were relegating animal power to the sidelines the biggest impediment to the rush to motor powered vehicles was the quality of the roads. Originally developed for humans on foot, horses and horse-drawn vehicles, some dating back to Roman times, they were completely unsuitable for the faster, heavier, internal-combustion powered vehicles being produced in the tens of thousands in the 1920s. The roads needed to be upgraded to cope, contractors were being held to ten year maintenance contracts and gravel, especially good quality, extra hard gravel, was required in vast amounts. And the hill opposite Crookhaven was composed of an extremely hard sandstone.

It operated for about ten years, employing between seventy and eighty men, and one woman, closing abruptly in September 1939. Operations never resumed. The operating company was owned by the Rowe brothers from Exeter in Devon, England. The current registered owner of the land is Mrs. Elizabeth de Zerega Conkling Pelham-Clinton, who died in 1946.

If you would like to know more about the Browhead Quarry: www.buythebook.ie/this-is-the-mizen/