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Displaying items by tag: New Military Medal

#CrewMedal - The Defence Forces writes The Irish Independent, have awarded a new military medal to members who have been deployed on humanitarian missions.

It will be presented to personnel who have taken part in overseas missions with the prior approval of the Government.

Up to now, the military have been awarded medals by either the United Nations, the EU or Nato for most missions outside of the State.

But those deployed on humanitarian missions, such as the current Operation Pontus, where the Naval Service have been rescuing migrants from the Mediterranean since last year, have not been similarly recognised.

The decision to award the new medal was announced yesterday by Minister with responsibility for Defence, Paul Kehoe, when he visited the captain and crew of LE James Joyce in Cagliari in Sardinia. The presentation of the medals will take place in Rosslare, Co Wexford, next month.

LE James Joyce is the fifth Naval vessel to have been deployed since the Irish joined the Mediterranean mission in May last year.

Sixteen bodies have been recovered so far by the 59-strong crew of LE James Joyce and a total of 1,882 migrants, including 56 children, have been rescued.

Published in Navy

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.