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Displaying items by tag: Fran Keane

#Rowing: Fran Keane has been chosen as Operations Manager and Pathway Coordinator for Rowing Ireland. Keane comes from a strong Athlone rowing family. His father and uncles rowed for Athlone Boat club and after following the family tradition he went on to row for UCC and Cork Boat Club. He also had a year rowing in Galway. Having moved to Cork in 2002 Fran secured a job teaching in Presentation Brothers College in 2004 where he also had the role of Head Rowing Coach.

Over the past 14 years in this job, Fran has overseen the development of the schools rowing program to where it has nearly 100 boys participating. He has coached a number of winning crews at the Irish Championships as well as preparing athletes for international selection. Keane has coached successfully at all junior international levels: Home Internationals, Coupe de la Jeunesse, Junior European Championships and Junior World Championships.

For Rowing Ireland, he has been involved in a voluntary capacity as Lead Sweep Coach, Lead Junior Men’s Coach and Junior Lead Coach. “I am delighted to be joining the Rowing Ireland team at such an exciting time for Irish rowing and look forward to the challenge that this role has to offer,” he said after his appointment. Speaking about the appointment, the chair of the high-performance committee, Neville Maxwell, said: “Forward planning is key to our organisation, not only with targeting Tokyo (2020) but also preparing for Paris (2024). We believe that the appointment of Fran will fit perfectly with this strategy. Fran’s experience at domestic club level and with the junior team over the last number of years will hugely benefit Rowing Ireland as we build our clubs and crews in the upcoming years.”

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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.