Organisers of the Wexford Maritime Festival have following a groundswell of public support, have opted against cancelling this year’s event, in favour of postponing for a couple of months.

Originally slated to take place on Wexford’s quayfront on 2-3 July, those behind the festival took to social media to announce that the 2022 event had been cancelled due to spiralling costs. This led to an outpouring of disappointment and support and just a few hours later, the organisers were back online to inform the Wexford public that the festival would in fact be going ahead this year, albeit at the later date of 3-4 September.

"I suppose we kind of ran out of time to get things sorted and to source funding and get our insurance etc in place for the initial date,” Festival Director Lorraine Galvin explained.

“It was difficult to get things back up and running again after a couple of years without the festival due to Covid. It looked like we weren’t going to be able to have a festival this year, but we got such a huge positive reaction from people that we decided we’d go ahead with the September dates, which actually coincide with National Services weekend.

As the Wexford People reports more on the festival that is to go ahead in over two month's time.

One of the country’s largest celebrations the coast, the Wexford Maritime Festival is set to host five vintage lifeboats later this week from June 24th to 26th as the vessels voyage to Wexford from across Ireland and the UK.

The 100 year old ‘Whitby’ lifeboat will arrive for display during the festival weekend along with former Royal National Life Boats the ‘Canadian Pacific’ from Kyle of Lochalsh, ‘J. W. Archer’ from Wales and the ‘Joseph Soar’ from Coleraine. The antiquated lifeboats will take pride of place on the Quayside in Wexford town alongside a Wexford's maritime heritage showcase at the festivals Maritime Model Village where an exhibition on Vintage Transport through the lens of Robert Shorthall with over 100 model boats and aircraft will be on display.

Wexford Maritime Festival offers festivalgoers an action-packed programme of events on Wexford Quays, with everything displays of maritime heritage to opportunities to try a new watersport along with search and rescue displays to stunt aircraft taking to the skies.

Commenting on the upcoming weekend one of the festival organisers Lorraine Galvin says, “We are set to welcome over 40,000 people to the festival, most of our events are on offer for free or for a nominal price with all proceeds from this event being donated to the RNLI. This is the fifth year of the festival and the programme is our biggest yet, we are also expanding the programme by a day as we run from Friday right through until Sunday evening this year. This festival is a wonderful opportunity to celebrate our 275 kilometres of coastline here in Wexford.”

The festival launches on the Friday evening with a Gala Banquet hosted by the Wexford Food Family with celebrity chef Phelim Byrne. In all 38 festival events will take place, highlights inlcude Rescue Saturday where a major Search and Rescue display with aircraft, lifeboats and ambulance crews showcase their capabilities and skills. Along with a large Emergency Services Village, visitors can meet the crews and see their equipment including the first visit by the Irish Armys Mowag Piranha IIIH 8x8 armoured personnel carrier, Irish Coast Guard, RNLI, Defence Forces, Civil Defence, Gardia, Wexford MarineWatch, Seal Rescue, HSE.

Fun-day Sunday sees a spectacular stunt show with formations with two RV 7 aircraft with gravity defying, jaw dropping displays take to the skies above the Quayside.

A ‘Try it Dock’ will be on offer in the Maritime Village with local water sports groups taking people out to try out some new waterbased. Wexford Sub Aqua club will host a free try a dive Sunday 26 at 4.45 p.m. and the ever popular Raft Races take place on Sunday afternoon for teams of six.

A rowing regatta and sailing regatta will also take place and a flyboarder 'Ironman’ will quire literally walk on water. And for the landlubbers, lots of activities will be on offer shoreside with food and music to the fore with Wexford band Corneryboy and SoulTrek and the Funk Generation will entertain the messes along with a Big Barbeque bash for a summer festival vibe.

The Childrens Village welcomes fun activities including Art and Colouring, Crazy Games, Disco Fun, Wobbly Circus Show, Viking Village and Recreate Environment Workshops.

#WexfordMaritimeFestival –As the Wexford Maritime Festivals (27-20 June) gets underway tomorrow, the festival has many events lined-up for all to enjoy until this Sunday.

As reported on Afloat.ie, one of the largest such festivals now in its third year since its foundation in 2012 which is to honour the memory of the founder the US Navy Commodore John Barry in his hometown of Wexford – known in the U.S. as 'Father of the American Navy.

The festival attracts tens of thousands of visitors each year and this year's festival programme is certainly a treat! Among the many events taking place are those directly to do with all things nautical, for more visit Maritime Activities.

Among the lead-in events of the festival is the Maritime Heritage Week where tonight there is a talk at 8pm about the "Kerlogue" a general cargoship to be presented by Pat Sweeney. The emphasis of the talk will be the heroic rescue of German sailors by the cargoship following a battle at sea with the British Royal Navy in the Bay of Biscay during December 1943.

For much more details of 'all' events during the three-day festival visit the homepage here.