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Coastal Development in Ireland
Shannon Airport is increasingly prone to flooding with predicted sea level rises over the next 80 years
#CoastalNotes - Coastal defences and protections against flooding are outlined in a new Department of Transport plan to prepare Ireland for future climate change, as The Irish Times reports. The draft consultation report, Developing Resilience to Climate Change in the…
North Atlantic waves like those seen here in Nazaré, Portugal can reach gigantic proportions
#RecordWave - Nineteen metres is the height of what’s being called the world’s largest wave, recorded recently off the North West Coast of Ireland. Independent.ie reports on the record-breaking swell detected by a weather buoy in the North Atlantic between…
Trump International Golf Links & Hotel at Doonbeg, Co Clare
#Doonbeg - US president-elect Donald Trump has abandoned plans for a near 3km sea wall at his golf resort in Doonbeg, as The Irish Times reports. Despite local support for the scheme in the Co Clare village, the proposed coastal…
An original caisson base to be used for the Kish Lighthouse was damaged in a storm but was aquired 50 year ago in 1966 to form part of the old Greystones Harbour in Co. Wicklow
#Greystones - The Kish Lighthouse on Dublin Bay marked its 50th anniversary a year ago this November however the original caisson base destined for the iconic structure half a century ago instead became part of the now demolished old Greystones Harbour,…
Bray Harbour in County Wicklow
Clubs and users of Bray Harbour met again last Tuesday night at Bray Head Fishing and Social Club to form the Bray Harbour Action Group to deal with the build up of sand silting up the harbour. Newly appointed chair…
The East Coast railway between Newcastle and Wicklow town has suffered serious coastal erosion in recent years of powerful winter storms
#CoastalNotes - Coastal defences in Wicklow suffered significant damage during last week’s Storm Angus, posing a renewed threat to the East Coast rail line, as The Irish Times reports. The Irish Sea came within metres of the busy Dublin-Wexford line…
The houseboat was spotted at Cross Beach on the Mullet Peninsula
#Houseboat - The Canadian houseboat that washed up on the northwest Mayo coast earlier this month could be repurposed as a tourist attraction for the region. As previously reported on Afloat.ie, the vessel drifted across the Atlantic from Newfoundland to…
The houseboat was spotted at Cross Beach on the Mullet Peninsula
#Houseboat - Just days after reports of fatty balls on Mayo beaches comes word of a houseboat that’s washed up on the county's northwest coast after crossing the Atlantic from Canada. RTÉ News reports that the houseboat was set to be…
#1916rising – A 1916 Easter Rising maritime themed exhibition entitled ‘Portals of Unpreparedness’ was launched today (14 November) in the Dun Laoghaire Lexicon Library. The exhibition focuses on the arrival on the morning of 26th April 1916 of the Sherwood…
Cross Beach on the Mullet Peninsula, where locals say they discovered the fatty globules in recent weeks
#CoastalNotes - Dog walkers have been warned to keep their pets away from smelly, fatty globules that have washed up on the North Mayo coast in recent weeks, as The Irish Times reports. One woman on the Mullet Peninsula says…
The restored 6-pounder Hotchkiss gun from the wreck of HMS Guide Me II off Dalkey Island. The exhibit was recently remounted in the grounds of the maritime museum
#WW1gun - A World War 1 gun retrieved from a wreck off Dalkey Island in Dublin Bay has recently gone on display at the National Maritime Museum in Dun Laoghaire, writes Jehan Ashmore. The restored 6-pounder Hotchkiss gun is from…
#DredgingDalkey - Industrial mussel seed dredging will leave Ireland's coastal waters "full of jellyfish and little else", convervationists claim. As the The Irish Independent writes, four industrial trawlers had worked in Dublin Bay over the three days beginning last Sunday (23 October). …
#Lecture - Glenua & Friends presents the lecture: The Road to Rio Paralympic Sailing The talk by Dr. Austin O’Carroll takes place next Thursday 3 November at 20:00 in Poolbeg Yacht & Boat Club Ringsend, Dublin. Entry €5 (in aid of…
The torpedo-shaped object found on a beach in Liscannor contained 75kg of cocaine
#CoastalNotes - A whopping 75kg of cocaine has been seized by the Revenue Commissioners from a torpedo-like capsule on a beach in Liscannor, Co Clare, as Independent.ie reports. The “suspicious item” containing the drugs, thought to have a value of…
Clean Coasts’ Ocean Hero Awards Are Open for Nominations
2016 marks the 10th Anniversary of An Taisce’s Clean Coasts programme’s ‘Ocean Hero Awards’. The awards, originally called the ‘Clean Coasts’ Merit Awards’, were conceived in 2006 to honour the invaluable contribution Ireland’s coastal communities have made towards conserving our…
Skerries Sailing Club looking very trim, as befits the new SuperValu TidyTown status, with GP 14s preparing to go out to the race area
Anyone involved in assessing national sailing contests such as the Mitsubishi Motors “Club of the Year” or the Afloat.ie “Sailor of the Month” awards will be able to tell you it’s much better to do such work by stealth if…

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.