The significance of Valentia Island and the first transatlantic cable

As the annual Valentia Island lecture series approaches, let’s look at the how a single telegram in 1858 paved the way for a cornerstone in modern networks.

It has been nearly 166 years since the first transatlantic telegram was sent out from Kerry’s Valentia Island to Heart’s Content in Newfoundland, laying down the foundations for global communications.

This achievement was a massive undertaking, requiring thousands of miles of cable to be laid underwater and collaboration between teams on both sides of the Atlantic. The historic importance of the event means the island’s cable station is on track to become a UNESCO World Heritage site.

The Valentia Island Cable Station. Image: Valentia Transatlantic Cable Foundation

This endeavour is being undertaken by the Valentia Transatlantic Cable Foundation, which was set up in 2016. This foundation will also hold its annual Valentia Island lecture series on 19 July, which is supported by BT Ireland and will feature various Government speakers, tech leaders and Canada’s ambassador to Ireland.

“We know that the laying of the transatlantic cable transformed not only global communications but Ireland’s place in the world,” said BT Ireland MD Shay Walsh. “In an instant, the world became a smaller, more connected place and Ireland was at the centre of it.

“Through the laying of the transatlantic cable, Valentia Island became a hub of engineering, technical and telegraphic skills, ushering in a new age of modern communications technology.”

The route to modern communications

The first milestone was achieved on 16 August 1958, when a telegram was sent from Queen Victoria to US president James Buchanan. But things did not get simpler after reaching this milestone, as the cable was damaged within weeks and stopped working.

It would be roughly eight years until the cable was successfully working again. Leonard Hobbs, the chair of the Valentia Transatlantic Cable Foundation, explained the importance of getting this cable to finally work properly.

“Improvements in the cable technology meant that when the next successful cable was laid in 1866, messages could be sent in minutes, and many more cables were subsequently laid connecting countries all over the world in what is sometimes called the ‘Victorian Internet’,” Hobbs said.

“The transatlantic cable reduced the time it took to communicate dramatically as what required two weeks by ship could now be done via the deep-sea copper cables in minutes, thus beginning an era of global collaboration.”

Hobbs says the story of this transatlantic cable has many factors, being a tale of scientific endeavour, risk-taking, entrepreneurship and more. The success put the small islands from both sides of the Atlantic “at the ‘cross hairs’ of the emerging global communications industry”.

After this point, the speed of long-distance communications began to grow rapidly. Derek Cassidy, BT Ireland’s submarine cable technology lead, said the speed of telegrams progressed from eight words a minute in 1866 to 300 words a minute in the early 1900s, with Valentia Island Cable Station playing “a huge part in its development”.

The importance of these cables has skyrocketed since then. Both Hobbs and Cassidy claim subsea cables carry 99pc of the world’s internet traffic.

“The world’s communication infrastructure is underpinned by the international web of submarine communication cables that literally crisscross the globe,” Cassidy said.

“Without the first developments in telegraph communications and the research and innovation carried out by the team on Valentia Island, we would not have been able to develop the world communication network that we see today.”

More leaps to come

There have been various technological leaps between the first transatlantic telegram in 1858 and modern cables, from the creation of the Coaxial cable that was patented in 1931 to the development of optical fibre in the 1960s.

“When the first-ever transatlantic cables were laid, they were using copper wire to transmit electrical signals,” Hobbs said. “Electricity generation and transmission was very much a new science.

“Some of the early issues, including the destruction of the first cable of 1858, came about due a lack of understanding of the some of the basic principles of electricity transmission. Today’s cables enable the transmission of light along fibre optic strands within the cable. Fibre optic transmission is a well-researched and mature technology and thus enables an ever-increasing bandwidth across the internet.”

Cassidy said there is more in the future of submarine cables beyond communications, as there are examples of them being designed to act as sensors, smart cables and be used for environmental monitoring.

“Cables are now being deployed to monitor seabed and cable movement, seismic activity, current direction and strength and many other activities not within the communication sphere,” Cassidy said. “These new designs incorporate all the usual communication technologies, but they are also revitalising techniques first discovered by the telegraph engineers at Valentia Island Cable Station in the 1860s.”

The story isn’t over for the Valentia Island Cable Station either, as the foundation continues to push for the site to be recognised by UNESCO. Hobbs said this goal is why the foundation began its annual lecture series in 2017, which will be held this year at the historic station.

In 2022, the Irish Government announced a new World Heritage Tentative List for Ireland that included the transatlantic cable in Valentia Island. Another major milestone occurred last year when the foundation acquired the first message building, which Hobbs said is “very important” when it comes to achieving World Heritage status.

Find out how emerging tech trends are transforming tomorrow with our new podcast, Future Human: The Series. Listen now on Spotify, on Apple or wherever you get your podcasts.