Warm tributes have been paid to Cathy Buchanan, who has recently retired after many years as general manager of maritime cultural organisation and community boatyard Meitheal Mara in Cork.
“Kind, dedicated, hard-working, principled and fair” was how board member Joan Dinneen described her at a special event to mark her retirement in Cork County Cricket Club on the Mardyke.
“Throughout her tenure in Meitheal Mara, Cathy ensured that the core values of the organisation were upheld in the boatyard, in the youth rowing programme, in the organisation and delivery of An Rás Mór (the Ocean to City race) and the Cork Harbour Festival, in the heritage work, and so on,”Dinneen said.
“ The turnover increased significantly to over half a million today,”she noted.
“Meitheal Mara is a complex organisation with many branches growing off the core/trunk,”Dinneen explained.
“Cathy’s work has not just kept Meitheal Mara afloat - she has been at the helm as we extended our reach, strengthened our reputation, growing a partnership with a focus on developing the Cork Maritime Adventure Centre down river near Blackrock village,”she said.
Dinneen recalled how she first met Cathy Buchanan in the early 1990s.
“Not many people know that she was part of the trekking support team on the 1993 Irish Everest Expedition, which put Dawson Stelfox on the summit. This was the first Irish ascent. At that time Cathy was coming to the end of her illustrious sliding seat rowing career,”she said, referring to her distinguished sports career as winner of ten Irish rowing championships in the 1980s and 1990s.
“In the mid 90’s Cathy moved to Cork, initially to University College, Cork (UCC). This move south also corresponded with trading the sliding seat for the fixed seats of traditional currach,”she continued.
“ At first Cathy lived on her boat Lapwing. Lapwing was at this time moored in Drake’s Pool, and Cathy didn’t have a car. She would take the bus home from work in UCC’s Geography Dept, walk from the bus stop to her punt and then row out to Lapwing,”she said.
Dinneen shared a house with Cathy and Deirdre Tobin in the Shandon from 1997, and it was around that time that she met the “founding fathers” of Meitheal Mara - Pádraig Ó Dúinnín, Donal Lynch, Donagh McArtain, Ted O’Sullivan, DanJoe Coleman, Cian O’Shea and Harry Moore.
She took up currach rowing with Naomhoga Chorcaí, followed by a few seasons aboard Bantry longboat “Fionnbarra” at Meitheal Mara.
She became the first female member of Meitheal Mara, and took over the helm as general manager in 2011, Dinneen recalled.
Cathy Buchanan and Meitheal Mara board member Joan Dinneen.
In 2019, she was one of a group of 12 women - The Beours With Oars - who rowed 90 nautical miles from Arklow in Wicklow to Aberystwyth on the Welsh coast over the May bank holiday weekend to raise money for charity.
“Cathy, I know no human with a smaller carbon footprint than you, and I know no human who has spent their working life so dedicated to their work. We thank you, we wish you fair winds and a long and happy retirement,”Dinneen said to much applause.
Master of ceremonies was Meitheal Mara chair Marianne Keane and other speakers on the night included Pádraig Ó Duinnín and writer and adventurer Jasper Winn.
Winn read an extract from his book, still in “the works”, which was commissioned by Meitheal Mara in memory of Donal Lynch.
Seamus Harrington read a poem, Ode to a Wooden Boat, and Seamus O’Brien, workshop manager, presented Cathy with a hazel tree sapling. The plan is to plant this at the organisation’s new site on the Marina, near Blackrock village.
A watercolour painting of the Bantry longboat “Fionnbarra”, painted by Roddy Hogan, was presented to Cathy by Mary Doran, a former board member.
Other former board members also made presentations. Pat Ruane gave her a copy of Dr Breandán Mac Conamhna’s book, The Curraghs and Naomhóga of Ireland – Their Story; while Brendan Hennessy gave her a photo album which he had put together, marking her long and distinguished involvement with Meitheal Mara.
Founded in 1993, Meitheal Mara is a registered charity, a training centre and a community enterprise on the river Lee.
The organisation’s primary object is to promote and foster maritime culture and activities and social inclusion, through community boating projects, employment and partnerships with a particular emphasis on currachs and other traditional boats.
