Templetown Bay is located on the southeast coast of Ireland, upon the eastern shores of the entrance to Waterford Harbour and 4 miles northward of Hook Head lighthouse. It is a secluded and picturesque anchorage with good holding.

Templetown is an exposed anchorage in settled conditions that should be considered only as a day-anchorage, lunchtime stop or tide-wait location. It is not usable in any strong westerly component conditions, but is excellent in anything easterly or settled conditions. The wide, unhindered and well-marked Waterford Harbour estuary provides safe access night or day, and at any stage of the tide.

Keyfacts for Templetown Bay

Position and approaches

Haven position

52° 10.650' N, 006° 54.400' W

Off the beach in the 2.5-metre LWS contour.

What is the initial fix?

This waypoint is 600 metres south by southwest of the Waterford Channel No.1 starboard-hand marker (Fl G 2s on a bearing of 009° T). It is directly east of Creadan Head, upon the eastern side of the Waterford Channel, where at night you will see the Dunmore East leading lights alternate white/green.

What are the key points of the approach?

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What's the story here?

Templetown Bay is situated within the entrance to Waterford Harbour, on the eastern shore of the Hook Head peninsula, about 4 miles northward of Hook Head. It is a secluded bay in an isolated location.

The bay has limited protection, save from easterly conditions. However, with the 2-metre contour lying less than 150 metres off the beach, it is ideal temporary anchorage to land on a quiet, out-of-the-way beach.

How to get in?

Use the Port of Waterford for details of seaward approaches, entry to Waterford Harbour and the run up the estuary.

From the initial fix, set in the middle of the entrance, a vessel may steer a direct course for Templetown Bay, a distance of 2½ miles to the northeast of the Waterford buoy.

Alternatively, and particularly so for eastward-approaching vessels, it is possible to freely round Hook Head and follow the peninsula’s western shoreline up to the bay. There is plenty of water, with no off-lying dangers 300 metres off this coastline.




On closer approaches, the bay is readily identified by a church set back ¼ mile from the beach, with a public house close north of it.

Tuck in as far as draught permits and land on the beach by tender.

Why visit here?

Templetown derives its name from the Knights Templar, who took ownership of this area after the Norman invasion and used the region as a centre for their operations.




The Knights Templar, or simply Templars, is a shortening of the ‘The Poor Fellow-Soldiers of Christ and of the Temple of Solomon’, or ‘The Order of Solomon’s Temple’. They were formed in Jerusalem in 1118 to protect that city, as well as Pilgrims visiting holy sites in the Middle East. Later they adopted the Cistercian rule and were officially recognised by Pope Innocent II in 1130. The Templars led the invasion of the Middle East and in doing so, their striking uniform of white mantles with a red cross became emblematic.

At the time there were other similar Christian military orders operating in Europe and the Middle East, and there was much rivalry between them. The Knights Hospitaller were another example and they also followed the Normans into Ireland, taking estates further up river and constructing Ballyhack Castle. However, the Knights Templar were by far the best known of all the military orders, being the most skilled and ferocious warriors. They adopted the role of a standing army, assuming the defence of key military positions, towers and castles throughout Europe. Non-combatant members of the order later began to operate this network of fortifications across Europe and the Holy Land in a structured fashion. From this widespread piece of economic infrastructure stretching throughout Christendom, they began to innovate and institutionalise financial techniques for transferring and lending funds, regarded by many as the origins of modern banking. This made them a very wealthy and powerful order.

The Templars were well established in England at the time of the invasion of Ireland, so it was natural that the organisation should follow the Norman armies; some individual invading Knights were believed to be Templars. When in 1171 King Henry II landed in Waterford, he came to secure his control of the conquest. The invasion’s leader, Strongbow, had become heir to the ‘Kingdom of Leinster’ and Henry II began to fear the establishment of a rival Norman state in Ireland. He established the Knights Templar on both sides of the Waterford Estuary, deploying them in the same role as during the crusades and throughout Europe – providing security at key strategic points. At the time, Waterford Harbour was the principal corridor between Britain and southeast Ireland, and the Templars would protect estuary access. On the east side, he granted them the Hook Peninsula, south of a line from Duncannon to Carnivan, and this was to become their base. Settling into Templetown the Knights Templar became a part of Norman society throughout Ireland for over a century, until the order was entirely destroyed in 1308.

The Templar downfall came from their close ties to the Crusades and Holy Land, but mostly their burgeoning banking empire. In 1291 the last vestiges of the Crusader Holy Land states fell to the Mamluk Sultanate. The Templars received a good deal of the blame for the loss of the Holy Land, which after all was their raison d’être – ‘defending the city of Jerusalem and Christian pilgrims’. Already resented for their wealth, power and arrogance, support for the order faded quickly. The Templars attempted to organise another crusade to retake the Holy Land, but it failed entirely. Furthermore, during this period the Knights Templar had loaned vast sums of money to the King Philip IV of France, known as Philip the Fair.

Deeply in debt to the Templars, and unable or unwilling to repay what he owed, this turn of events presented the king with a chance to cancel his debt by eliminating the order. He played on their secretive nature by seizing upon wild (and almost certainly false) heresy accusations made against the order by a recently expelled and embittered Templar. On Friday 13 October 1307, he raided all of the order’s residences across France, arresting all Templars and seizing their properties. The captives were tortured until they confessed to numerous absurd charges (included idolatry, defamation of church objects and homosexuality), following which they were burned at the stake. The conjured scandals so shocked medieval Europe that Philip was able to force Pope Clement V, then living in Avignon and almost entirely under his control, to have the order disbanded in 1312. The Templars were arrested In Ireland, as in the rest of Europe, and imprisoned in Dublin Castle before being tried in St Patrick’s Cathedral in 1310. While there was no torture used in Ireland, accusations based on hearsay were hurled at the Knights, but no evidence could be found and no confessions were forthcoming. The Templars, mostly older Knights in Ireland and not expected to give much trouble if left alone, were admonished to be good Christians and pensioned off. Their properties were either taken by the Crown or transferred to the Hospitallers.




The abrupt disappearance of a major European organisation that had existed for almost two centuries gave rise to speculation, legends and conspiracy theories. This, alongside their distinctive dress, has kept the Templar name alive in images of the Middle Eastern Crusades and in literature, notably Dan Brown’s fantasy novel the The Da Vinci Code. The best Irish link to the Templar Knights is found here in Templetown, where the Templars owned lands and houses. The ruins of their 13th-century church stand proudly above the beach. On the ground to the left of the church, a stone slab bears a Templar seal of a lamb and crucifix, while within the churchyard, the grave slabs mark the burial sites of “Poor Fellow-Soldiers”. The church’s unusual castellated tower is thought to have been built at a later stage for protection against warring Gaelic clans; other parts were added to by the Knights Hospitaller and the Loftus estate.




Today Templetown Bay offers a beautiful, tiny and secluded beach on which to land and let the family loose. Templetown church is a short stroll up through the rural fields and provides access to one of Ireland’s very few and best Knights Templar touchstones, within which a visitor is free to wander. Alongside it is an excellent pub to have lunch. From a boating point of view, Templetown Bay is also an excellent place to wait out a tide.

What facilities are available?

This is a secluded bay with no facilities save for a good landing beach and a rough farm track that gradually ascends to the road. A few awkward fences and gates, which are especially set up to be uncompromising and dissuasive for the causal stroller, will have to be scaled.

Any security concerns?

You are most likely to be completely alone at this beach and away from any interference.

With thanks to:

Burke Corbett, Gusserane, New Ross, Co. Wexford. Photography with thanks to Michael Harpur and Burke Corbett.