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Displaying items by tag: Marino Point

According to EchoLive questions regarding plans for the long-awaited redevelopment of Marino Point, the former Irish Fertiliser Industries (IFI) site, near Cobh, will be taken by Port of Cork staff at two events in September.

Two public information evenings are due to take place regarding the Belvelly Port Facility masterplan on September 4 at Belvelly Port Facility office at Marino Point and Thursday, September 5, at Passage West GAA club, both between 4pm and 8pm.

The Marino Point jetty is located in 10m of water, enabling large ships to dock there and a number of companies are set to be located in the 114-acre site.

Port activities will likely be focused on oil, agri-feed, and fertiliser traffic.

The site was previously owned by IFI and UK-based Chemical Industries and closed in 2002 with the loss of over 200 jobs.

For more including comments from a local councillor, click here. 

Published in Port of Cork

#PortofCork - Chairman of the Port of Cork, John Mullins, hopes that activity can return to the long-idle Marino Point within two years, bringing valuable jobs to the area.

As The Evening Echo writes, since the former IFI plant closed, in 2002, with the loss of 220 jobs, the jetty (except for a recent Naval visitor) and other faclities have lain idle for years. 

The Port of Cork led a consortium to buy it and, since the deal was finalised, in 2017, there has been significant interest in the project.

“We are working on the new masterplan for Marino Point,” Mr Mullins said. “We have parcels of land there and various people looking at them and we will be presenting a masterplan to Cork County Council of various tenants that intend to go in there.”

The Marino Point jetty is located in ten metres of water, enabling large ships to dock there, and the plan is for it to be used as a bulk terminal for products like agrifeed and fertiliser.

More on the story can be read here.

Published in Port of Cork

#PortOfCork - The Port of Cork has secured the former Irish Fertiliser Industries Plant at Cobh in a public-private partnership deal that will see a significant expansion of its cargo handling facilities.

According to the Irish Examiner, the circa €6 million deal with Wexford-based Lanber Holdings gives the port a 40% stake in the site of the Marino Point plant, which closed in 2002 with the loss of 220 jobs.

Port of Cork chief executive Brendan Keating said the partnership will “explore every business opportunity for the site”.

He added: “We will focus initially on cargo handling and new trading opportunities, such as fertiliser and animal feed importation.”

The news follows the announcement of a new project to ship more than €300 million worth of natural gas from Texas to Cork, as reported yesterday on Afloat.ie.

It also comes as stakeholders in Cork Harbour propose moving the long-mooted International Shipping Services Centre to Leeside, and alongside plans for an improved cruise liner terminal on Cobh.

Published in Port of Cork
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Ireland's Trading Ketch Ilen

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

Designed by Limerick man Conor O’Brien and built in Baltimore in 1926, she was delivered by Munster men to the Falkland Islands where she served valiantly for seventy years, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties.

Returned now to Ireland and given a new breath of life, Ilen may be described as the last of Ireland’s timber-built ocean-going sailing ships, yet at a mere 56ft, it is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

Wooden Sailing Ship Ilen FAQs

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

The Ilen was designed by Conor O’Brien, the first Irish man to circumnavigate the world.

Ilen is named for the West Cork River which flows to the sea at Baltimore, her home port.

The Ilen was built by Baltimore Sea Fisheries School, West Cork in 1926. Tom Moynihan was foreman.

Ilen's wood construction is of oak ribs and planks of larch.

As-built initially, she is 56 feet in length overall with a beam of 14 feet and a displacement of 45 tonnes.

Conor O’Brien set sail in August 1926 with two Cadogan cousins from Cape Clear in West Cork, arriving at Port Stanley in January 1927 and handed it over to the new owners.

The Ilen was delivered to the Falkland Islands Company, in exchange for £1,500.

Ilen served for over 70 years as a cargo ship and a ferry in the Falkland Islands, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties. She stayed in service until the early 1990s.

Limerick sailor Gary McMahon and his team located Ilen. MacMahon started looking for her in 1996 and went out to the Falklands and struck a deal with the owner to bring her back to Ireland.

After a lifetime of hard work in the Falklands, Ilen required a ground-up rebuild.

A Russian cargo ship transported her back on a 12,000-mile trip from the Southern Oceans to Dublin. The Ilen was discharged at the Port of Dublin 1997, after an absence from Ireland of 70 years.

It was a collaboration between the Ilen Project in Limerick and Hegarty’s Boatyard in Old Court, near Skibbereen. Much of the heavy lifting, of frames, planking, deadwood & backbone, knees, floors, shelves and stringers, deck beams, and carlins, was done in Hegarty’s. The generally lighter work of preparing sole, bulkheads, deck‐houses fixed furniture, fixtures & fittings, deck fittings, machinery, systems, tanks, spar making and rigging is being done at the Ilen boat building school in Limerick.

Ten years. The boat was much the worse for wear when it returned to West Cork in May 1998, and it remained dormant for ten years before the start of a decade-long restoration.

Ilen now serves as a community floating classroom and cargo vessel – visiting 23 ports in 2019 and making a transatlantic crossing to Greenland as part of a relationship-building project to link youth in Limerick City with youth in Nuuk, west Greenland.

At a mere 56ft, Ilen is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

©Afloat 2020