Afloat tracked today a new arrival on Irish Ferries Rosslare-Pembroke route, the Isle of Inisheer, which normally operates the company’s Dover-Calais link, writes Jehan Ashmore.
Isle of Inisheer has been running the southern Ireland-Wales route for over a week, making its first time on the Irish Sea, but the presence of the smallest conventional ferry in the fleet on the link is only temporary.
The Isle of Inisheer it transpires has been taken off the UK-France route to allow the Rosslare ferry, Isle of Innisfree, to undergo a scheduled dry-docking. By coincidence, the Isle of Innisfree is almost back on its original Strait of Dover territory, as the veteran vessel is at Dunkirk, neighbouring Calais, from where Irish Ferries has employed the ferry from 2022 on the short-sea service with Dover, until transferred to the Ireland-Wales route this July.
Before its debut on the Irish Sea, for a brief period the chartered Oscar Wilde returned to the route and also under its renaming as James Joyce, so to free this name for this summer's entry of Oscar Wilde (see further below) on the Dover-Calais run.
The Isle of Innisfree's dry-docking is at Damen Shiprepair, previously Arno Dunkerque, which is the only large shiprepair facility in north-eastern France. The port is also where the 'Inisheer', when launched in 2000 as Northern Merchant, inaugurated Norfolkline’s Dunkerque-Dover service.
Isle of Inisheer becomes the fourth ferry on the Irish Sea route this year, as aside from the Innisfree, the Wexford-Pembrokeshire’s previous ship was the aforementioned Oscar Wilde/James Joyce. Since the end of January, it was the turn of the chartered in P&O ropax Norbay which proved to be controversial given it did not convey foot passengers and having no lifts affected some passengers.
A third charter involved the Greek flagged Blue Star 1 which in 2021 replaced the Rosslare-Pembroke’s route’s long-serving Isle of Inishmore of two decades which enabled Irish Ferries to launched the cruise ferry on a new service, the Dover-Calais route.
Despite all the ferry changes on the Ireland-Wales route and fears of a pull-out arising from Brexit, Irish Ferries have shown commitment to the southern corridor service. The Dublin-based company also in 2021 signed a 10-year deal with the Port of Milford Haven to use Pembroke Dock which forms part of the South Wales energy port with its related terminals on the estuary.
Isle of Inishmore having entered the UK-France link, was eventually joined by the Inisheer and Innisfree, providing a three-ship service in competition with rivals P&O and DFDS. However, this summer saw the later ferry transfer to the Irish Sea, having replaced the James Joyce, formerly Oscar Wilde which entered the route last year (after the end of Blue Star 1's charter). Currently, the cruise ferry operates Dublin-Holyhead and at weekends the French connection between the Irish capital and Cherbourg.
The gap created by the departure of the Isle of Innisfree on the Dover-Calais route was replaced by the Oscar Wilde as mentioned previously. This latest Oscar made its debut also in the summer, having served the same link as P&O’s Spirit of Britain.
