Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

As if there wasn’t enough Kerry sadness with Fungie’s disappearance, along comes Peig Sayers... As The Sunday Independent reports today, a newly published collection of stories by one of the Great Blasket’s best-known residents shows her “grámhar or more flirtatious…

This is Thomas Jobling's third novel and as with the preceding books, Chasing Shadows and Arthur's Dead has a distinctly nautical backdrop which I suspect comes easily to a writer who was born and lived by the sea. Tom (as…

If you were asked to name the real centre point of modern Dublin, you'd probably dodge the question by saying that it's somewhere along a line through O'Connell Bridge and Trinity College, and on up Grafton Street or Dawson Street.…

Dunmore East RNLI has been saving lives off the South East coast since 1884. Since then Lifeboats based in the village have launched nearly 1000 times and saved over 305 lives and aided 1315 people in distress on the seas…

A unique collection of short stories celebrating individual connections with Ireland’s rivers, lakes and beaches has just been published. Stories from the Waterside is the result of a national story writing competition of the same name held in April and…

There is a hidden wealth of literary talent in the North which deserves greater exposure and the book Shaped by the Sea produced by a team of volunteers in the East Antrim area is an excellent example writes Betty Armstrong…

The Skibbereen boatyard where Ireland’s last trading schooner was painstakingly restored has been immortalised in a new book of photography, as The Irish Times reports. Hegarty’s Boatyard, on the River Ilen near Skibbereen, is the last surviving traditional boatyard in…

For 90 years, the Irish Cruising Club’s Sailing Directions have been the standard text on small-craft pilotage of the Irish coast. As Afloat contributor Lorna Siggins wrote in her review for The Irish Times: “Approach any port without these navigational…

“Stop for a quick apple and orange drink. Paddle on in flat water. Stop for cake and try throwing a lifebelt onto a beach...” “ Arrive Courtown at about 11.15 to champagne and a congratulations cake reception! A lifetime trip…

High resolution scans of the wreck of the RMS Lusitania and expert opinion from divers, researchers and specialists feature in a new book on the ocean liner published this week writes Lorna Siggins  National Monuments Service underwater archaeologists Fionnbarr Moore,…

RTÉ’s Fergal Keane will be at Baltimore Sailing Club next Saturday 7 December for the launch of a new book celebrating 100 years of the West Cork village’s RNLI lifeboat service. Baltimore Lifeboat: A Community Story by Éamon Lankford is…

Enda O’Coineen has many friends who sail Northern Waters. Now there’s the chance to meet up with him next week at the launch of his latest book, Journey to the Edge in No Alibis bookstore on Botanic Avenue, Belfast writes…

An encounter with late poet and sailor Danny Sheehy enlivens author Philip Marsden’s adventure along Ireland’s wild Atlantic way, as he writes for The Irish Times. Marsden had set out to research a book about mythical islands — which took…

From Enda O’Coineen, in business and adventure, we can learn much. The man sails on a sea of obsession in life — guided only by the goals he sets himself. He became the first ever Irish entry to qualify for…

Ken O’Sullivan spent the summers of his youth in what he describes as a ‘Huckleberry Finn-type existence’ on Fenit Island, Co Kerry, his father’s home place and that of his family since 1750. Getting the fishing bug at aged 10,…

One hundred years ago, Irish naturalist Robert Lloyd Praeger led a survey of the natural history and cultural heritage of Clare Island in Co Mayo at a level of detail greater than any area of comparable size at that time.…