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Displaying items by tag: Stormont Agreement

#TallShips - The Atlantic Youth Trust has hailed its inclusion in the new implementation plan for the Stormont Agreement announced yesterday.

As RTÉ News reports, Northern Ireland's power-sharing administration finally struck a deal yesterday (Tuesday 17 November) after more than two months of negotiations.

And according to the trust's Neil O'Hagan, the sail training initiative is "the only the only independent charitable project included in both this agreement and the Irish Government's Capital Investment Plan.

"This secures our future and most importantly our ability to deliver youth development, peace-building and maritime education voyages for generations to come. In the coming weeks we will be working with both administrations to determine timelines," he added.

The Atlantic Youth Trust has proposed the construction of a new tall ship as a replacement for the Asgard II to bring young people from both sides of the border together for sail training voyages.

O'Hagan said the inclusion of the project "in a historic document such as this does not come easily and would not be possible without the support and guidance of our stakeholders.

"We would like to once again thank everyone involved in getting us to this point and look forward to working with you all over the coming years."

Published in Tall Ships

William M Nixon has been writing about sailing in Ireland and internationally for many years, with his work appearing in leading sailing publications on both sides of the Atlantic. He has been a regular sailing columnist for four decades with national newspapers in Dublin, and has had several sailing books published in Ireland, the UK, and the US. An active sailor, he has owned a number of boats ranging from a Mirror dinghy to a Contessa 35 cruiser-racer, and has been directly involved in building and campaigning two offshore racers. His cruising experience ranges from Iceland to Spain as well as the Caribbean and the Mediterranean, and he has raced three times in both the Fastnet and Round Ireland Races, in addition to sailing on two round Ireland records. A member for ten years of the Council of the Irish Yachting Association (now the Irish Sailing Association), he has been writing for, and at times editing, Ireland's national sailing magazine since its earliest version more than forty years ago