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Displaying items by tag: Michael Maher

#ROWING: A Commercial/Old Collegians composite eight beat Trinity to win the men’s senior eights title at the Neptune Regatta at Islandbridge today. The winners had just half a length to spare at the end of a good race.

Michael Maher, the number two man in the winning boat, had earlier won the senior single sculls, while Holly Nixon beat Eimear Lambe in the women’s club one single sculls.

The event was held in excellent, sunny, conditions.

Neptune Regatta, Islandbridge

Men

Eight – Senior: Commercial/Old Collegians (N Gahan, M Maher, R Peguet, S Jacob, D Neale, A Maher, F Groome, J Graham; cox G Connolly) bt Trinity, ½l. Novice: UCD B bt Trinity B, 3l. Masters: Belfast RC bt Carlow 1½ l. Junior 16: Portora bt Bann 4l.

Four – Club One, coxed: UCD bt Blackrock, ¾l. Intermediate, coxed: Trinity bt Neptune, easily. Junior, coxed: Portora bt Bann 6l. Masters, coxed: Carlow (D) bt Commercial (C) easily

Sculling, Quadruple – Club Two, coxed: Commercial bt Athlone 2½ l. Junior 18: Athlone bt Commercial 1½ l.

Junior 16, coxed: Commercial bt Bann, 4l. Junior 15, coxed: St Michael’s bt Methodist Col, 1½ l. Junior 14, coxed: New Ross bt St Michael’s ½ l.

Double – Junior 16: St Michael’s bt Graiguenamanagh, easily

Single – Senior: Commercial (M Maher) bt Trinity (G Como) easily. Club One: Garda (D Kelly) bt UCD (Toland) canvas. Club Two: Trinity (Addison) bt Trinity (Slevin). Intermediate One: Trinity (Rooney) bt Sligo 2l. Junior 18: Clonmel (Shannon) bt Clonmel (Lonergan). Junior 16: Graiguenamanagh (Lennon) bt Graiguenamanagh (Scully) 3l.

Women

Eight – Club One: Portora bt UCD, 3½ l. Junior 18: Portora bt Bann. Junior 16: Portora bt Galway, 2l. Junior 15: Portora A bt Portora B 2l.

Four – Club One, coxed: Commercial A bt Commercial B, easily.

Sculling, Quadruple – Club Two: Galway bt Neptune, 2½ l. Junior 18: Neptune bt Methodist Col, 4l. Junior 16, coxed: Bann bt St Michael’s 4l. Junior 15, coxed: Commercial bt Methodist Col 4l. Junior 14, coxed: New Ross bt St Michael’s.

Double – Junior 16: Clonmel bt Methodist Col Did Not Finish. Junior 15: Col Chiarain bt Clonmel 4l.

Single – Club One: Portora (H Nixon) bt Commercial (E Lambe) 1l. Club Two: Carlow (H O’Toole) bt Athy 2l. Jun 18: Commercial (A Rodger) bt Methodist Col. Junior 16: Clonmel bt Sligo (Did Not Finish).

 

Published in Rowing

It was a good year for Irish rowing: among the highlights were an Ireland eight taking bronze at the World University Championships; John Keohane winning the single sculls title at the World Coastal Rowing Championships; Siohan McCrohan and Claire Lambe reaching A Finals at World Cup and European Championship level. At home, NUIG won the senior eights title after another great battle with Queen's. Standing out above the rest, however, is the achievements of the four men who made up the Lightweight Quadruple Scull which took silver at the World Under-23 Championships. Niall Kenny, Michael Maher, Mark O'Donovan and Justin Ryan (pictured below) are the Afloat Rowers of the Year 2010.

rower23

Rower of the Year award: The judging panel is made up of Liam Gorman, rowing correspondent of The Irish Times, President of Rowing Ireland Anthony Dooley and David O'Brien, Editor of Afloat magazine. Monthly awards for achievements during the year have appeared on afloat.ie. The overall national award goes to the person or crew who, in the judges' opinion, achieved the most notable results in, or made the most significant contribution to rowing during 2010. Thanks for your interest!

Published in Rower of the Year

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