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Displaying items by tag: Mace Head

#SEARCH AND RESCUE - A body was recovered yesterday during the search for a 43-year-old fisherman missing off the Galway coast, as RTÉ News reports.

The body was discovered near the shoreline of St Macdara’s island off Carna, some distance from the empty currach found early yesterday morning at Inis Mór in the Aran Islands to the south.

The missing man, named locally as Gerry Folan or Gearoid O'Cualáin, was last seen rowing a currach from the Mace Head area around 5pm on Monday evening.

As previously reported on Afloat.ie, a major air and sea search and rescue operation was launched, assisted by Irish Coast Guard helicopters and the Air Corps Casa patrol craft.

RTÉ News has more on the story HERE.

Published in Currachs

#SEARCH AND RESCUE - The Irish Times reports of a major air and sea search and rescue operation for a 43-year-old fisherman missing off the Galway coast.

Irish Coast Guard helicopters based at Sligo and Shannon joined the overight search for the man, who was last seen rowing a currach from the Mace Head area around 5pm yesterday.

It is understood that a currach was found in the area this morning.

The search resumed at first light, with the Air Corps Casa patrol craft searching the area, and coastguard and lifeboat crews set to rejoin the operation.

Published in Rescue

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.