Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Turbot Island's main claim to fame has been its sighting by trans-Atlantic aviators John Alcock and Arthur Whitten Brown before they crash-landed at Derrygimlagh bog in north Connemara on June 15th, 1919. Turbot or “Inishturbot” is a few miles west…

No fire brigade, no doctors, no ambulance service – when a problem arises at sea, seafarers have to tackle it themselves. That’s what makes the seafarer a “special breed” who is always “solution-focused”, according to Port of Galway harbourmaster Capt…

Communities who believe they are at risk from wind turbines and other proposed new infrastructure deserve more than just a tightly managed consultation exercise, however, well the consultation is conducted. That’s the view of chartered surveyor Michael Ocock, who has…

Polar explorer, adventurer and boatbuilder extraordinaire Jarlath Cunnane is moving apace with his lockdown project to build a replica of the James Caird, the Shackleton Antarctic expedition lifeboat. Cunnane’s main aim is to remember the Scots carpenter Henry or Harry…

Brexit and the pandemic are not the only challenges facing Dublin Port, which handles almost 50 per cent of Ireland’s trade. Port chief executive Eamonn O’Reilly has predicted it will reach full capacity by 2040, and so it has initiated…

Brexit, Covid-19 and the situation of seafarers who have been unable to take their leave since the pandemic hit – these are just some of the challenges facing harbourmasters in ports around the island. Cork harbour, which is being transformed…

“Voyagers from the grave” read the headline in a Melbourne newspaper, The Advocate, in 1877, and the report was about three Galway men who had by then become known as “the shaughrauns”. The previous November of 1876, four men, had…

Lee Early, deputy coxswain of the RNLI’s Arranmore lifeboat in Donegal lost his life in 2019, but his name is one of 10,000 which will be inscribed on the hull of the new Shannon class lifeboat bound for Clifden, Co…

Bow to bow, they stretch five kilometres – that's how the Rolex Fastnet yacht race organisers have welcomed the record entry for this summer’s race, which will have a new finish in Cherbourg, France. Some ten Irish entries are among…

Some 30 per cent of researchers worldwide are female, according to UNESCO which marks International Day of Women and Girls in Science this week About 35 per cent of all students in STEM-related fields – that’s science, technology, engineering and…

The Government’s ambitious plans for renewable energy off the Atlantic coast should involve communities as active stakeholders and not just recipients of compensation, an island energy co-op has said. Dara Ó Maoildhia, chairman of Comharchumann Fuinneamh Oileáin Árann, the Aran…

“We’ll always give our best, treat every incident as if it is one of our own.... and try our utmost to get a missing family member back to their loved one.....” The words of Lieut Stephen Stack, head of the…

“Good news everyone”, the natives have returned...” It’s not your average title to a scientific paper, but this one has reason to celebrate - hailing the return of native oysters to Belfast Lough after a century. The paper by Bangor…

Why do Japanese fishing vessels steam halfway around the world to catch tuna on the Irish Continental Shelf edge, and why do Norwegian vessels hunt for highly valuable blue whiting in these waters? Arthur Reynolds, the founding editor of The…

Pandemic restrictions have forced us all to live like trapped adventurers “on a metaphorical ice floe”, according to the Shackleton Museum in Athy, Co Kildare And so “What would Shackleton do?” was the title of five podcasts which it released…

As details emerge on the full negative impact of Brexit on the Irish fishing industry, two Wexford skippers have called for the appointment of a dedicated minister for marine.  Scallop skippers Will Bates and Seamus Molloy who fish from Kilmore…