Arranmore Island Ferry Services, which operates to the island off north-west Donegal on the Wild Atlantic Way, has been announced by US company Tripadvisor as among their Travellers' Choice Award Winners 2024, writes Jehan Ashmore.
For more than three decades, Arranmore Island Ferry Services (Báid Farantóireachta Árainn Mhór), trading as Aranmore Ferry Company, has run the 15-minute route from Burtonport on the mainland to Leabgarrow on the island. The distance involved is almost 5 km, or 3 nautical miles, offshore, and the island is reached by sailing on the red one!
The company's marketing is referring to their two distinctive 'red’ hull ferries, twins Coll and Rhum (originally serving Scottish operator Caledonian MacBrayne), which each can take up to 96 foot passengers and cater for all sizes of vehicles of up to 10 in total. In the summer months, they run on an hourly basis of between 15 and 20 minutes of crossing time by the 8-knot pair.
Afloat was trawling through the Arranmore ferry company’s social media and noted this week a posting whereby the Donegal ferry company, had through reviews from millions of Tripadvisor travellers placed the ferry winner in the top 10% of companies worldwide. The award recognizes businesses that consistently deliver great service.
In response to the award, the company posted, “This was a lovely surprise when we went into our emails this (Monday) morning. We are delighted for our business to get this recognition, but more importantly for our great crew and staff, a great boost after a busy weekend.”.
Following last weekend, the ferry company, also on social media said it had a busy period that required the relief ferry, Coll, which was on standby, to resume service to boost capacity, which enabled them to carry up to 20 vehicles at a time and 190 plus foot passengers.
Otherwise, the Coll operates a cargo ferry service to Tory Island, which lies 14.5 km (12.6 nm) off the coast and is available for charter service to all the islands off Donegal.
The busy traffic load to Arranmore was due to parents visiting their children at Colaiste Arainn Mhoir, Cloughcorr, which teaches the Irish language and promotes culture during the summer holidays. This involves around over 500 students travelling from all over Ireland to Arranmore which is part of the Donegal Gaeltacht, and Ulster Irish (Gaeilge Uladh) which is the main dialect in use.
The ferry company is supported by the Gaeltacht Authority (Roinn na Gaeltachta), a semi-state body responsible for tourism and development in Irish-speaking areas. It has served Arranmore, or Árainn Mhór (large ridge) island, which, at around 20 sq km, with 400 people, is Ireland's second-biggest inhabited island and the largest of the Donegal islands.
Aranmore Ferry Company, in another posting this week, said that for the next parents visiting Colaiste Arainn Mhoir, they are offering discounted tickets. The ‘early bird’ prices are only available for a limited time, and those prices will revert to their original prices once allocated spaces have been filled on the ferries.
Both of these ferries, Coll and Rhum, are named after islands off west Scotland, which, as alluded to, indicate as to their origin. As Afloat highlights, the twins were ordered by operator Caledonian MacBrayne as part of the ‘Island’ class built by James Lamont & Co. Ltd., Port Glasgow.
The same Clydeside yard built more of the Island class, the Canna and similiar Morvern, also for CalMac, which currently operate for the ‘blue’-hulled rival, Aranmore Ferry (Realt Na Maidne Teoranta), which has additional vessels in its fleet.
Afloat will have more to report on the background of these former CalMac 'Island' class small ferries that served the Isles among them Arran on the Firth of Clyde and their role and changes since made in Irish waters.