There is nothing at the published coordinates, but this rocky shore beside Blackrock House is a good place to start the story.
On November 19th 1807, two ships, the Prince of Wales and the Rochdale, left Pigeonhouse harbour, carrying newly recruited militia from Cork and Mayo for the war against Napoleon. In hurricane force winds and with sleet and snow reducing visibility to zero, neither had made it past Bray Head by the next day. Return to harbour in Dublin was impossible, because the sandbar that lay across the mouth of the Liffey restricted access except at high tide in good weather.
The Prince of Wales, with 120 members of the 97th Regiment on board, sailed under the command of Captain Robert Jones. Attempts to ride out the storm at anchor failed, and she was blown back past Dun Laoghaire. With her sails completely shredded, she was impossible to control, and she was driven onto the rocks right here, by Blackrock House.
There was one longboat aboard, and that is how Captain Jones, nine seamen, two women with children and two soldiers got ashore, leaving the rest trapped. He was subsequently charged with murder, amid allegations that at the time of the wreck the soldiers were locked below deck. But the charges were dropped because no witnesses survived, and a verdict of "casual death by shipwreck" was arrived at.
The Rochdale was wrecked by the Martello tower at Seapoint. The ship was so close to the shore that a four metre long plank would have reached her, but everyone on board was lost - 265 people including 42 women and 29 children.
Estimates of the total death toll from those two ships that night vary from 360 to 500, and two other vessels were lost near Dublin that night too. Bodies were washed up all along the coast from Dublin to Dun Laoghaire, together with the possessions of the lost. Six people were convicted of looting and sent to Kilmainham Gaol.
The construction of a massive safe harbour at Dun Laoghaire, with its two enormous granite piers, was the direct result of these shipwrecks. Dublin harbour was made more accessible by the two great walls at the mouth of the Liffey, and the building of the Dublin to Kingstown railway changed the coastline completely. But if you know where to look, you can find that horrific night remembered. This message, once deciphered, will show you where.
