Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: DART railway

Something to do with the kids!....head off to Dun Laoghaire Harbour tomorrow for the 'Family Funday', an event full of activities held on the Carlisle Pier, writes Jehan Ashmore.
There will be bouncing castles, a bottle-stall, clowns, face-painting, fortune-teller, goldfish, magic balloon man, music, pet-corner, puppet show and a wheel of fortune. In addition there is a 'Pirates and Princess' competition, a raffle and a hot-food stall.

Opening times are 11am to 5pm and the entry fee is €3 for adults and children go free. The Funday is to help raise funds to support the local national maritime museum of Ireland in Dun Laoghaire. The Maritime Institute of Ireland is a registered charity, which run the museum through volunteers. In addition they host lectures, represent maritime interests and operate a museum and library.

The museum is housed in the former Mariners Church and is currently closed due to renovation and improvement works. There will be a 'soft launch' or 'preview' of the museum from October to mark the M.I.I.'s 70th anniversary.

Next year the museum is due to be officially re-opened during the Easter. The M.I.I. welcomes new members, volunteers and donations. For further information visit www.mariner.ie

Published in Dublin Bay

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.