Weekly Maritime News and Affairs with Tom MacSweeney
There is always something interesting to be reported upon and discussed about the maritime sphere, I believe and so I always want to broadcast interesting stories on This Island Nation. This week one underlines the importance of maintaining knowledge of…
Bantry Bay is one of this island’s greatest maritime resources and is about to be opened up with a new marina very close to the centre of the town. Twenty-two miles long from its entrance and with 22 slipways and…
A German submarine sank the City of Dublin Steam Packet Company’s RMS (Royal Mail Ship) Connaught, about which much less is known than its sister ship, the RMS Leinster, which was sunk with huge loss of life off Dun Laoghaire.…
I was in Baltimore Sailng Club last week for the annual training camp run by the Optimist Association when 130 young sailors braved and overcame what were at times quite testing sailing conditions. I watched with admiration the impressive organisation…
Sailing is in recovery mode after six or seven years of famine. That is the opinion of the Chief Executive of the Irish Sailing Association, Harry Hermon. This week he told me frankly that the sport had struggled over the past…
I have been thinking of whales this week and remembering when I first saw a big one very close-up, so at the start of my podcast you can hear the sound, recorded underwater in the Atlantic Ocean of a humpback…
There are photographs on marine animal welfare websites which show the awful horror and terrible suffering which balloon and lantern releases into the air have caused to marine wildlife. If you saw or see them, you would never again let…
I visited my Sigma 33, appropriately named SCRIBBLER – II to be particular, as there was a previous incarnation, a Ruffian 23, which proudly bore SCRIBBLER 1. My visit was to check her out, see how she was surviving the…
In the proud annals of Irish explorers there is a forgotten name and it surprises me that so few Irish people know about him. When I have mentioned the name of Edward Bransfield, very few have had any knowledge of…
The Secretary of State for Northern Ireland had a lot more than maritime matters on his mind this past week…. So he probably wasn’t giving a lot of thought to Lough Foyle as the Northern Assembly collapsed. Neither, I suggest,…
Without a lot of public attention Birdwatch Ireland, the conservation organisation which protects Ireland's birds and their habitats, is engaged in an extensive survey of seabirds. Ireland is a very important country for seabirds which are, in my view, marvellous…
It was ice on the rigging which put me off sailing in November and December. That was quite a few years ago, but as climate change has had its effects, those months have had different weather patterns and this year…
When I changed tack in my journalistic career and moved, after nearly 30 years from mainstream reporting to specialising in marine matters, I was told by a number of people that I would be “wasting my time” because it was…
I am lucky enough to have good friends in the lifeboat service. Over the years I have met great Coxswains and their crews, enjoying their friendship and admiring with deep respect what they do – marvelling at the rescues they…
In my last Podcast, I expressed the opinion that it is strange how things happen. This was again underlined for me as I prepared the new edition of my maritime programme which you can listen to below. Galway Port Company…
“The question which must be answered by the Minister is – Does his Department genuinely not think that fish are a natural resource? “If the answer is ‘no’ – then who, in his name (and all of us), said that…
