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Displaying items by tag: Dnegal

A pod of dolphins attempted to save the life of an Irishman who drowned in Australia last month after only six weeks in the country.
Irish Central reports that Shaun McBride from Donegal was dismantling scaffolding at a wharf in Dampier, Western Australia, when the structure collapsed into the water.
Police divers reportedly found his body surrounded by a pod of dolphins. One of them was using his nose to push the body to the surface.
Shaun's mother Sylvia told mourners at his funeral in Burtonport that she had been comforted at learning the dolphin's actions in keeping vigil on her son.
Irish Central has more on the story HERE.

A pod of dolphins attempted to save the life of an Irishman who drowned in Australia last month after only six weeks in the country.

Irish Central reports that Shaun McBride from Donegal was dismantling scaffolding at a wharf in Dampier, Western Australia, when the structure collapsed into the water.

Police divers reportedly found his body surrounded by a pod of dolphins. One of them was using its nose to push the body to the surface.

Shaun's mother Sylvia told mourners at his funeral in Burtonport that she had been comforted at learning the dolphin's actions in keeping vigil on her son.

Irish Central has more on the story HERE.

Published in Marine Wildlife

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).