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- 1855 30th December (CJ). Kilkee, Alarming Accident: Lieut-Col Pepper and Miss Smithwick were in advance, when a huge wave broke over the party, saturating Col. and Mrs Fisher, and dragging off Mr. Pepper and Miss Smithwick directly into the puffin hole. No assistance could be given to the unfortunate pair, whom it was said were shortly to be united in the bonds of matrimony. --- The gentleman was for many years in the East India Company?s Service, and the lady was the grand-daughter of the late Rev. Robert Gabbett, D.D.
From the Limerick Chronicle: ? "We have the painful duty of recording a most disastrous casualty at the Puffinghole table rocks, west end of Kilkee, on Sunday last. The weather on the coast had been for a few days previously wild and stormy. The Atlantic surges were impelled against the rugged cliffs to a height seldom seen by visitors, and the foam of the angry billows floated in the air and fell inland a considerable distance. After church service on Sunday, the weather brightened up, and the wind had fallen; but there was a fearful swell on the ocean, and several persons walked towards the cliffs to enjoy the marine prospect for miles at both sides of the bay. Captain and Mrs. Fisher, Lieut. Colonel Hampden Pepper, of Lissenisky, Robert Smithwick, Esq., and Miss Smithwick, the daughter of Peter Smithwick, Esq., of Shanbally, Tipperary, formed one of the groups. They agreed to visit the Puffing Cavern, which the day after a storm usually throws up a fountain of sea water in the most fantastic fashion, and, if the sun happens to play on this romantic spectacle, the successive jets d?eau exhibit the varied hues of the rainbow, the ceaseless motion of the tide below keeping all the attractive features above in full exercise. The immediate locale of this singular object is approached by a sliding pathway from the cliff, and then about a perch of almost level granite rock direct to the cavern. Lieut. Colonel Pepper and Miss Smithwick were in advance, and the former was urging the others to move on, when a coastguard man on the cliff warned the party of the. danger of venturing out, and Captain Fisher, observing a huge wave rolling in, called out to Lieutenant Colonel Pepper to mind himself, when the sea broke on the rock with a thundering crash, saturating Captain and Mrs. Fisher, and completely overpowering Lieutenant-Colonel Pepper and Miss Smithwick, who were both dragged together by the receding swell into the shaft of the puffing hole and there disappeared, to the horror and amazement of those persons who were providentially saved from a similar fate, though dripping wet and exhausted by the violent shock. The alarm of this tragic event was promptly given; the police, fishermen and coastguards hastened to the fearful scene, but no human being dare approach the brink of the puffing hole, which had just engulphed two victims in the prime of life, and probably mutilated their bodies in a short time by the maelstrom action of the maddening waters in the massive chaldron within. The remains of the unfortunate lady and gentleman have not since been found. Part of an overcoat that Lieutenant-Colonel Pepper wore, and the sleeve of Miss Smithwick?s dress, were cast ashore in the vicinity of this awful catastrophe. Lieutenant Colonel Pepper had a large sum of money on his person when he fell a prey to the merciless element."
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Abt 1832 - 1855 (23 years)