Valentia Island’s transatlantic cable to be put forward for Unesco World Heritage status

The 19th century transatlantic cable on Valentia Island is one of three groups of sites being put forward for Unesco World Heritage status by the State.

The other sites are the passage tomb landscape of Co Sligo and the royal sites of Ireland, which include Hill of Uisneach, the Rock of Cashel, Rathcroghan and the Hill of Tara along with potential for a cross-Border project at Emain Macha.

Ireland has just two inscribed Unesco World Heritage sites, Skellig Michael off the coast of Co Kerry and Brú na Bóinne in Co Meath.

The last tentative list was drawn up in 2010. The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage said it would, with the OPW, focus on supporting the three sets of sites on the new list with their nomination applications to the World Heritage Centre in Paris. The sites were selected because of their potential to show outstanding universal value to humanity.

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The Co Kerry project is jointly Irish-Canadian and commemorates the 3,000km cable, which transformed global communications in 1858. The copper undersea transatlantic cable, which had been attempted a number of times before success in 1858, reduced communication times from weeks to minutes.

It placed Valentia Island in south Kerry and neighbouring villages of Waterville and Cahersiveen at the centre of global engineering and communications technology and training for almost 100 years.

The first message transmitted on August 16th, 1858 was a note of congratulations from Queen Victoria to US president James Buchanan, and was sent from Valentia Island to Newfoundland, Canada. The world’s press had gathered in south Kerry for the event.

The Valentia Cable Station, which played a pivotal role in the transatlantic cable story, closed its doors in the 1960s as other technologies replaced the copper cables used to carry information across the Atlantic.

The old station has been refurbished and an interactive Transatlantic Cable Visitor Experience, called The Eight Wonder, has opened to the public. The exhibitions include telephonic as well as Morse code and radio communications.

Chair of the Valentia Transatlantic Cable Foundation Mr Leonard Hobbs said they were delighted their efforts to pursue World Heritage status for the transatlantic cable project at Valentia had reached “this important milestone”.

The existing “tentative” list dates to 2010 and the department says it intends to revise it more regularly to increase opportunities for Unesco World Heritage status in Ireland.