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Displaying items by tag: Former WWI battlecruiser

HMScaroline – As previouslt reported, the Belfast-based former WWI warship HMS Caroline could create "one of the most significant World War One commemoration projects in the world".

The claim has been made by the grandson of the admiral who commanded the Royal Navy's Grand Fleet in 1916. HMS Caroline has been docked at Alexandra Dock in Belfast since 1923.

Plans to transform it into a floating museum are progressing. The fast light cruiser played a lead role in the 1916 Battle of Jutland in which the Royal Navy forced the German Imperial Navy to retreat to port.

For much more on this development, BCC News Northern Ireland has a report.

 

Published in Belfast Lough

The Rankin Dinghy of Cobh, Cork Harbour 

A Rankin is a traditional wooden dinghy which was built in Cobh, of which it’s believed there were 80 and of which The Rankin Dinghy Group has traced nearly half. 

The name of the Rankin dinghies is revered in Cork Harbour and particularly in the harbourside town of Cobh.

And the name of one of those boats is linked to the gunboat which fought against the Irish Volunteers during the 1916 Easter Rising and later for the emergent Irish Free State Government against anti-Treaty Forces during the Irish Civil War.

It also links the renowned boat-building Rankin family in Cobh, one of whose members crewed on the gunboat.

Maurice Kidney and Conor English are driving the restoration of the Rankin dinghies in Cork Harbour. They have discovered that Rankins were bought and sailed in several parts of the country.