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Displaying items by tag: New 1916 Exhibition

#Exhibition - A new permanent display commemorating the gun-running ship Aud opened recently on Spike Island, Cork Harbour.

The exhibition writes East Cork Journal honours the men and crew of the German vessel which was scuttled in the harbour in 1916.

The German crew were attempting to deliver weapons as part of the preparations for the Easter Rising, when the ship was trapped by a blockade of British ships.

9 April: SS Libau masquerading as the SS Aud under the command of Karl Spindler set sail for Tralee bay. Under Spindler was a crew of 22 men. The vessel was laden with an estimated 20,000 riffles, 1 million rounds of ammunition, 10 machine guns and explosives.

While the vessel was at sea the meeting date had changed to the 23 April.

20 April: The Libau / Aud arrived in Tralee bay unaware of the change of date. The crew were to Rendezvous with Roger Casement who was landed close by, by a German u-boat.

The ship was spotted by a blockade of British ships and escorted towards Cork Harbour.

22 April: At exactly 6:30pm the crew scuttled the ship outside Cork Harbour.

If the meeting had gone as originally planned and the Irish kept their side of the agreement history may have been rewritten.

The exhibition is supported by the Department of Arts, Heritage, Regional, Rural and Gealtacht affairs.

Published in Coastal Notes

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.