Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Sunshine in December imparts a surreal look to everything it illuminates with its vivid low-angled delineation. And for anyone who happened to be on the Shannon Estuary between Kilrush and Scattery Island on Monday afternoon this week, the sense of…

Since the announcement in October by Transport Minister, Shane Ross TD, of the €450m project to upgrade the N69 between Limerick and Foynes by 2026, pressure has been growing for funding to be provided for the currently mothballed rail line…

Irish Sailing President Jack Roy officially opened the Kilrush Marina Training Centre on the Shannon Estuary in County Clare last Sunday. “This is another great addition to the Clare region and an addition to the services provided at Kilrush Marina”,…

When I walked into Adrian O’Connell’s office in Kilrush Boatyard on the edge of the Shannon Estuary in County Clare, a photograph on the wall caught my attention – a boat sailing at speed, red sails dramatic atop a black…

It was another record performance achieved at Shannon Foynes Port Company (SFPC) as the western port revealed its annual report for 2018. According to SFPC, earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortisation (EBITDA) were €6.8million. As for operating profits in…

In 1828, when the recently re-named and still only semi-finished harbour of Kingstown on Dublin Bay staged its first regatta, it certainly gave an indication of the transformed place’s potential for waterborne sport. Yet it was not until 1831 that…

I won’t be challenging Hal Sisk’s confident declaration that he is Chairman of “the world’s oldest cruiser-racer class!” His offer to anyone to challenge him sounded across Kilrush Boatyard to where I had driven over 400 kilometres from Cork to…

In the mid-west the Shannon Foynes Port Company is pursuing an unprecedented investment programme at pace to transform the Shannon Estuary into a major economic hub and act as an economic counter-pole to Dublin, consistent with Government’s National Planning Framework.…

The Foynes Flying Boat and Maritime Museum on the Shannon Estuary is gearing up to mark yet another milestone, the 30th anniversary of the opening of the museum itself. On July 8, 1989, the late Hollywood star, Maureen O’Hara Blair…

At the European Sea Ports Organisation (ESPO) annual Conference held in Port of Livorno, Italy, three ports were congratulated today among them Shannon Foynes Port Company for achieving the EcoPorts’ environmental management standard (PERS). The other ports that received PER status…

A trio of self-described ‘ordinary’ women will be attempting the extraordinary later this summer when they set out to swim the length of the River Shannon for charity. Fló Beo, which means ‘the living flow’, developed from an idea that…

The historic ketch Ilen of Limerick puts to sea again from her home port this weekend at the beginning of a complex 2019 sailing programme which will see the restored ship voyage in July towards southwest Greenland writes W M…

Permanent signage now in place at Spanish Point and Whitestrand Miltown Malbay beaches in west Clare hopes to rid the beaches of the scourge of plastic litter. The signs (not made of plastic) ask beachgoers to take away three pieces…

#ShannonEstuary - The port of Shannon Foynes writes The Irish Times, could take any post-Brexit strain off Irish east coast ports should Border checks lead to congestion, its chief executive has said. Pat Keating, chief executive of Shannon Foynes Port…

#Shannon - A €35m revolutionary floating data centre in Limerick Docks is being planned in a move which could create 124 jobs. As The Limerick Leader writes the city has beaten a number of locations across Europe to the investment,…

#ShannonEstuary - The recent return to the Shannon Estuary, almost 100 years later of restored ketch trader Ilen, which Afloat highlighted, sees the sole surviving Irish built ocean-going timber sailing vessel back home in Limerick Docks, writes Jehan Ashmore After…