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Surfers To Clash With Council Over Doolin Development

30th October 2012
Surfers To Clash With Council Over Doolin Development

#DOOLIN PIER - The Irish Times reports that surfers will be at loggerheads with Clare County Council this week over controversial plans to redevelop Doolin Pier.

The €8 million plans for the Clare coastal village have been delayed for some time, and have already cost the council more than €250,000.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the development was backed unanimously by Clare councillors in March 2011 after revisions made following concerns from local surfers about its impact on popular waves in the area.

However, the Irish Surfing Association (ISA) maintained that even that revised plan would result in the elimination of the waves at Doolin Point and Crab Island - the latter described as Ireland's answer to the Pipeline in Hawaii.

The proposed new pier would serve the 70,000 passengers that use the ferry service between Doolin and the Aran Islands. The development is also supported by the Doolin unit of the Irish Coast Guard, which hopes to get a new coastguard station as part of development plans for the area.

Published in Coastal Notes
MacDara Conroy

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MacDara Conroy

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

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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.