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Places are still available for this Sunday’s heritage walking tour of Dublin Port with Anthony Finnegan as part of Dublin Port Company’s events for Heritage Week

Dublin Port’s history dates back to 1707 and while the company has always looked forward, the port has never lost sight of its substantial heritage.

Much of the evolution of communities in the North and East Wall areas is inextricably linked either to the port itself, or the numerous industries which developed around it.

Railways, shipbuilding, car assembly, timber importers, and coal are some of the many businesses that flourished and evolved throughout the port’s history.

The early housing stock built in the vicinity of the port was developed to accommodate the workers and from those communities came significant artists, musicians, writers and poets.

Anthony Finnegan, a registered tour guide, served as a shore engineer at Dublin Port for nearly 30 years. Join him on a 45-minute walking tour this Sunday afternoon 14 August which starts at ‘the Sphere’ in Port Centre on Alexandra Road and concludes in Dublin Port’s new graving dock Heritage Zone.

The tour is free, with starting times at noon and 1pm, but booking is essential via the Eventbrite page.

Dublin Port Company advises the following: Parking is available at Dublin Port Centre. Access both on foot and by car via the gates on Alexandra Road. The tour will include the maritime garden which has a small number of steps. Port Centre will be closed so there is no access to toilet facilities on site.

Published in Dublin Port

About Brittany Ferries

In 1967 a farmer from Finistère in Brittany, Alexis Gourvennec, succeeded in bringing together a variety of organisations from the region to embark on an ambitious project: the aim was to open up the region, to improve its infrastructure and to enrich its people by turning to traditional partners such as Ireland and the UK. In 1972 BAI (Brittany-England-Ireland) was born.

The first cross-Channel link was inaugurated in January 1973, when a converted Israeli tank-carrier called Kerisnel left the port of Roscoff for Plymouth carrying trucks loaded with Breton vegetables such as cauliflowers and artichokes. The story, therefore, begins on 2 January 1973, 24 hours after Great Britain's entry into the Common Market (EEC).

From these humble beginnings however, Brittany Ferries as the company was re-named quickly opened up to passenger transport, then became a tour operator.

Today, Brittany Ferries has established itself as the national leader in French maritime transport: an atypical leader, under private ownership, still owned by a Breton agricultural cooperative.

Eighty five percent of the company’s passengers are British.

Key Brittany Ferries figures:

  • Turnover: €202.4 million (compared with €469m in 2019)
  • Investment in three new ships, Galicia plus two new vessels powered by cleaner LNG (liquefied natural gas) arriving in 2022 and 2023
  • Employment: 2,474 seafarers and shore staff (average high/low season)
  • Passengers: 752,102 in 2020 (compared with 2,498,354 in 2019)
  • Freight: 160,377 in 2020 (compared with 201,554 in 2019)
  • Twelve ships operating services that connect France, the United Kingdom, Ireland and Spain (non-Covid year) across 14 routes
  • Twelve ports in total: Bilbao, Santander, Portsmouth, Poole, Plymouth, Cork, Rosslare, Caen, Cherbourg, Le Havre, Saint-Malo, Roscoff
  • Tourism in Europe: 231,000 unique visitors, staying 2.6 million bed-nights in France in 2020 (compared with 857,000 unique visitors, staying 8,7 million bed-nights in 2019).