Friday evening’s announcement of the Irish Sailor of the Year 2023 title for 19-year-old Eve McMahon at her sailing home of Howth Yacht Club well captures the zeitgeist of mid-2020s…
Friendship, family and sailing enjoyment expressed enthusiastically through quietly efficient organisations - that was the warm theme which dominated Thursday evening’s convivial gathering in the National Yacht Club on Dun…
We take it for granted, and it’s always there - whether we like it or not. The good old Irish Sea. But could it be that there’s a new and growing awareness of just how much the Irish Sea can…
There was a time when the local sailing club was a social centre for children, where they got their first ‘taste’ of sailing as a ‘fun’ and enjoyable occasion without the stress of competition and performance separating them from each…
It has been confirmed by the Irish Cruiser-Racing Association (ICRA) that it’s extremely unlikely that Ireland will be mounting a defence in July 2016 of the RORC Commodore’s Cup, which we so convincingly won in 2014 with the team of Catapult,…
“The boy stood on the burning deck,” is one of the most famous lines in literature and particularly relevant in the maritime sphere. Many people can quote the next line…”Whence all but he had fled…” But why was he there,…
Maybe it’s time and more to see sailing and its story – and particularly the complex history of Irish sailing north and south – in a new light. This year, the historical sailing focus is on Northern Ireland, where the…
I have been vocal over the past few months in expressing concern about improving access to sailing and combating the impression that the sport is elitist. I spoke about the need for initiatives at the annual conference of the Irish…
Hello and welcome aboard this week’s edition of your maritime programme Seascapes, this week we have a report from last weekend’s commemoration in Ventry of the O‘Rahilly from Grainne McPolin for Seascapes, we’ll also be hearing from historian Brandn O…
I said words in tribute to a Lifeboatman on radio this week that I have never said before as I introduced my programme (scroll down the page for the podcast). I meant them and I was honoured to be able…
The 133rd annual racing programme of Dublin Bay Sailing Club was unveiled yesterday in the National Yacht Club in Dun Laoghaire, and it brought the announcement by incoming Commodore Chris Moore that the club had secured a strong three year…
Hello and welcome aboard this week’s edition of your maritime programme Seascapes ...(scroll down to listen) this week maritime historian Sean Rickard writes about the Shannon Turf Boats; we have a report from the recent Fishermans Friend Irish Mens Shed Association…
It isn’t often that I am told “she is a beast of a boat…” with admiration in the voice of the person describing the boat to me. However, when she has over 2,000 horsepower to get her moving, it is…
Hello and welcome aboard this week’s edition of your maritime programme Seascapes ...(scroll down to listern). Hugh Oram talks to the programme about his latest book on Sandymount published by The History Press Ireland and we hear the story of…
We’re into the last weekend in which the popular figure of James Horan will be making regular appearances on the Dun Laoghaire waterfront, and at national sailing occasions, as Commodore of the Royal Irish Yacht Club. Next week at the…
I love Irish history. It is the story of the Irish people, living in an island nation. But I have always wondered about a maritime, a shipping aspect of the Easter Rising, the commemoration of which has raised the profile…
This weekend has the Irish Sailing Youth Pathway Championships being staged at Howth, and despite the weather the place is buzzing. From being a harbour abandoned in embarrassment for twenty years in the middle of the 19th Century, the peninsula…
Hello and welcome aboard this week’s edition of your maritime programme Seascapes .....this week we’ll be hearing fromRichard McCormick, President of the Maritime Institute on the re publication of John de Courcy Irelands’ “The Sea and the Easter Rising “…