#CoastalNotes - Doolin expects to double the number of visitors on its ferry route to the Aran Islands after the opening of its new €6m pier last week.
As the Irish Examiner reports, it's envisaged up to 200,000 people will use the Co Clare village as a gateway to the Galway Bay island chain via the new pier which does away with the former practice of 'trans-shipping', or ferrying passengers by currach from the older, smaller pier to the ferry offshore at low tide.
Among the locals hailing the new pier's potential for the locality is ferry operator Eugene Garrihy, who says it represents "the best money spent here in decades" and believes the investment "will double within the next three to five years" as the previously announced master plan is carried out.
Garrihy adds that the ferry route was "completely hamstrung in the past by tidal issues, which prevented us [ferry operators] from scheduling sailings for a peak period of the day, but now the pier is redeveloped the shackles are definitely off for us.”
He also said that despite opposition from surfers over the pier's feared impact on the Crab Island wave, they have benefitted from the project in the form of a shower block and new launch area.
The Irish Examiner has more on the story HERE.
