Like all Ireland's larger sailing clubs, Howth Yacht Club's almost 2,000-strong membership includes enthusiasts whose personal hinterland is actively filled with other interests. This has resulted in the establishment of many sub-groups within the club, of which the most prominent is probably the Ireland's Eye Golfing Society, although the thriving art club seems to take over the clubhouse at times, as do various junior groups.
Nevrtheless it is the long-established in-club Cruising Group which is probably the largest sub-section of all, and its continuing success is such that sage observers have suggested that a similar in-club Sailboat Racing Group might be a useful idea.
However, until such activities as Jumping To Conclusions or Running Up A Bill are recognised as branches of Olympic athletics, there seemed to be little prospect of an HYC Athletics Group. Or there wasn't until the Paralympics 2024 drew towards a close in Paris in recent days.
GLITCH ART FROM OLYMPIC BRONZE?
Howth's Orla Comerford emerged from it all with the Bronze Medal in the Women's 100m – T13. Despite eyesight problems, she is an artist away from the athletics field, and has drawn inspiration from many sources, including the multi-curves of the frames and timbers of the classic Howth 17 which her father Gerry – a keen sailor for many years - is building beside the family home. She explains her speciality here:
The exploration of glitch art and the question of who gets to see in high resolution are central themes in my practice. My distortion & corruption of videos in order to create impressions, plays into these themes. How I encounter the world as a visually impaired artist, is a distortion in a sense.
I make up an image of what's in front of me based on impression. I play with the idea of having the viewer do the same when encountering my work. Via a Kinect sensor, the video & audio material of the installation changes as a viewer moves through the space.
This immersive experience allows them to view the piece more clearly, physically & contextually. The digital deconstruction of the videos contrasts with their subject matter - my dad's construction of a wooden boat. My interest in the traditional skills & craft of woodworking, which have been passed down through generations of my family, is evident in the subject matter, as well as in the large curved wooden sculptures I constructed.
TRADITIONAL WOODWORKING SKILLS
The inheritance of woodworking and boatbuilding skills goes back a long way with the Comerfords in Howth. After the failure of the shallow original harbour as the cross-channel ferry port, with services transferred to the new harbour at Dun Laoghaire in 1834, it took a long time for the Office of Public Works to admit their original strategic concept was wrong.
Rather than re-designate Howth as an official fishing port, the OPW preferred to forget its very existence, and it wasn't until the coming of the railway to Howth in 1847 that there was grudging acceptance of its usefulness as a fishing port. Yet even then, it took some time to make official the fact that various marine businesses were operating from the abandoned buildings on the West Pier, and it isn't until the 1860s that the admirable publication The Irish Builder reveals that among those harbour-side entrpreneurs is a boatbuilder, a Mr Comerford.
A MIGHTY LEAP
As for making the leap from a nascent boatyard in Howth in 1867 to a family celebration of an Olympic Bronze Medal in the Stade de France in 2024, that is something for the Mental Olympics. And all this after the weekend in which Howth crews seem to have emerged from the Irish J-Cup Championship in Dun Laoghaire with almost everything that mattered.