Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Dollymount Regains Blue Flag Status as Youghal, Malahide and Mullaghmore Lose Out

8th June 2012
Dollymount Regains Blue Flag Status as Youghal, Malahide and Mullaghmore Lose Out

#BLUE FLAGS - Dollymount Strand has regained its Blue Flag status in this year's round of awards, which sees the largest ever number of Irish beaches and marinas recognised.

The beach on north Dublin's Bull Island - which recently hosted Ireland's top kitesurfers for the 'Battle For The Bay' - once again flies the Blue Flag after losing it last year.

Also among the Dublin beaches receiving the EU accolade this year are Donabate, its first award since 2007, and Skerries south, which had not held Blue Flag status since 1995.

The news follows just weeks after Northern Ireland celebrated its own record year with 11 resorts receiving the coveted prize.

A total of 87 beaches and marinas around Ireland's coastline were awarded Blue Flag status this year, with some notable exceptions from the list.

As The Irish Times reports, Rush South and Malahide beach failed to make the cut, while in Cork, Claycastle Beach and the front strand at Yougal lost their flags.

And Mullaghmore in Sligo - an area now world-famous for its top-class surfing - lost out due to safety issues involving roaming livestock.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Published in Coastal Notes
MacDara Conroy

About The Author

MacDara Conroy

Email The Author

MacDara Conroy is a contributor covering all things on the water, from boating and wildlife to science and business

We've got a favour to ask

More people are reading Afloat.ie than ever thanks to the power of the internet but we're in stormy seas because advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. Unlike many news sites, we haven’t put up a paywall because we want to keep our marine journalism open.

Afloat.ie is Ireland's only full–time marine journalism team and it takes time, money and hard work to produce our content.

So you can see why we need to ask for your help.

If everyone chipped in, we can enhance our coverage and our future would be more secure. You can help us through a small donation. Thank you.

Direct Donation to Afloat button

Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.