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Displaying items by tag: BREXIT George Osborne

#BREXITport? - The UK's Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osborne reports MultiModal, met senior executives from Warrenpoint Harbour Authority (WHA) and local MP's during a visit to the Co Down port yesterday.

The Chancellor met MP Margaret Ritchie, along with Nicola Walker and managing director of Cronus Logistics, as previously reported on Afloat.ie, new operator of Irish Sea container feeder services. This includes the only Ireland-Wales service connecting Dublin and Cardiff along with Belfast and Bristol. 

The Chancellor was shown round the docks and observed ro/ro and containerised operations along with the discharge of bulk grain ships. He was also shown timber that is imported through Warrenpoint but ultimately is transported across the land frontiers into the south of Ireland.

“We are pleased that the Chancellor recognises the importance of Warrenpoint as a strategic port for imports and exports in Ireland,” says Nicola.

Speaking to the media during his tour he said, “I’m here at Warrenpoint and it’s a very practical demonstration of the fact that Northern Ireland has the only land border with an EU country… If we quit the EU, this is going to be the border with the EU.”

He later crossed the border on a lorry delivering timber into Dublin.

Published in Warrenpoint Port

About Conor O'Brien, Irish Circumnavigator

In 1923-25, Conor O'Brien became the first amateur skipper to circle the world south of the Great Capes. O'Brien's boat Saoirse was reputedly the first small boat (42-foot, 13 metres long) to sail around the world since Joshua Slocum completed his voyage in the 'Spray' during 1895 to 1898. It is a journey that O' Brien documented in his book Across Three Oceans. O'Brien's voyage began and ended at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland, where he lived.

Saoirse, under O'Brien's command and with three crew, was the first yacht to circumnavigate the world by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin; and was the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world's ports and harbours. He ran down his easting in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties between the years 1923 to 1925.

Up until O'Brien's circumnavigation, this route was the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).

At a Glance - Conor O'Brien's Circumnavigation 

In June 1923, Limerick man Conor O’Brien set off on his yacht, the Saoirse — named after the then newly created Irish Free State — on the two-year voyage from Dun Laoghaire Harbour that was to make him the first Irish amateur to sail around the world.

June 1923 - Saoirse’s arrival in Madeira after her maiden passage out from Dublin Bay

2nd December 1924 - Saoirse crossed the longitude of Cape Horn

June 20th 1925 - O’Brien’s return to Dun Laoghaire Harbour

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