1919 Public Meeting to have Telephone Trunk System Extended to Skibbereen.
When the Tribunal into to the Betelgeuse Disaster was held at the Westlodge Hotel in Bantry the reporters ahd to race to Drimoleague to queue at the payphone. This was as far as the automatic phone system went in 1990. The Bantry phone exchange was manual and a postal strike was on which lasted about 5 months so there was no phone coverage for the manual areas as well as no post.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whiddy_Island_disaster
The start of the Communication Revolution, Picture of ‘The Atlantic Telegraph Cable Fleet’ at Berehaven, Bantry Bay, 28th July 1866, held at Cable and Wireless Archive.
https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/5280
Opening of new automatic telephone exchange near Macroom, County Cork. Report shows the new automatic exchange, old switchboards, operators working a manual telephone exchange system. Interview Margaret Creedon manual exchange telephone operator. Interview Johnny Creedon, Postmaster, Macroom Manual Telephone Exchange. Johnny Creedon stamping letters by hand. The reporter is Tom MacSweeney.
https://www.rte.ie/archives/collections/news/21209353-automatic-telephone-exchange/
https://www.rte.ie/archives/2018/0529/966846-macroom-telephone-exchange-trouble/
1863. Julius Reuter and William Siemens and the South-Western of Ireland Telegraph Company, Linking Cork to Crookhaven by Telegraph and British & Irish Magnetic Telegraph Company, Cork to Cape Clear
https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/34140
1863, The Fibre Optic Broadband of the 1860s, Opening of Telegraph Office Skibbereen, Wires Extended to Baltimore and Submerged Cable to Sherkin. The American Intelligence will be Received Six Hours Sooner, Cork Market News to Be Received in Morning.
https://wordpress.com/post/durrushistory.com/27403
An Old Man Recounts: The First Time I visited Dunmanway c 1790, The Roads were Bad, My Sister and I were in Two Panniers at Each Side of A Horse My Mother on A Saddle in Between, Then Cars with Block Wheels Sawn of of a Thick Tree Bound Round With Iron, The They Got What They Called Scotch Cars With Spokes and Felloes at Opening of The Office of The Electric and International Telegraph Company, Dunmanway, Co. Cork, 1865. Messages from Cork, London and Crookhaven.
West Cork History 