The Bench is a well known and popular meeting place in the town. It got its name from the fact that sailors, traders and town people have met there for generations and conversed on all matters of greater and lesser importance. The perceived collective wisdom was so great it was likened to that which one would receive from a judge on the King's Bench. Elderly sailors and those with an interest in all things maritime gathered here over the years in a leisurely fashion. Conversations, gentle and nostalgic, recalling earlier experience of lifetimes at sea, were interrupted only to comment on a passing ship or craft. In the days before maritime radio communications, pilots used to gather here to watch for approaching ships coming over the horizon. They would then row out to meet the ships to guide them into a safe anchorage. That same entrance at the mouth of the harbour is where the Titanic lay at anchor on the 11th of April 1912. The terrace of houses up the hill and to the east of the Bench is known as Albert Terrace. The Pilot for the Titanic that day was Mr. John Cotter who lived in number seven. The area to the east and south of Albert Terrace was known as the Holy Ground, made famous in an emigrant song but referring to practices and establishments that were far from being holy.