A large iron cast model of a man has been landed here from Dublin, and has been sent to be placed upon the middle tower of the three towers lately built at Newtown Head, the Western Point of Tramore Bay in this county, with the left hand a akimbo, and the right hand extended out as a warning to vessels to keep off from that dangerous shore.  And so in early 1823 he was positioned on the pillar with right hand pointed seawards, and is supposed to call aloud to mariners: Keep off, good ship; keep off from me. For I'm the rock of misery.

 

Tramore's most famous personality has been standing on top of his 61-foot pillar since 1824, warning mariners of the dangerous Tramore Bay. The origin of this impressive figure dates from the early years of the 19th century when a sailing vessel passed on the wrong side of a reef of rocks off Rosses Point and foundered with the loss of all hands. The wife of the Captain of the ill-fated vessel was so appalled by the tragedy that she petitioned the Authorities to place some sort of warning signal on the dangerous rocks, and as the authorities seemed to address the matter with a lot more wages than actions, the good lady decided to do something about it herself. Being a woman of some means she commissioned the sculptor, Thomas Kirk, to design some form of warning signal, and so was created the small model of a Metal Man which Kirk exhibited at an exhibition in London in 1817. That catalogue described it as the figure of a British Tar, a sketch designed for a colossal statue to stand on a dangerous rock in the sea near the harbour of Sligo as a beacon.

 

Two years later the Ballast Board commissioned John Clarke to cast a metal figure from Kirk's model at a cost of 80 pounds. It was one of four gigantic figures cast at that time, our man being one of them. The whereabouts of the other two remain a mystery.