Kilrush RNLI’s inshore lifeboat aided in the rescue of a child swept out to sea on an inflatable lilo.

The incident yesterday afternoon (Thursday 28 May) occurred shortly after 3pm off Beal Strand on the Kerry shore of the Shannon Esturary.

It’s understood the casualty, a young girl, had been swept out to sea due to strong winds and tides in the area.

Lifeboat volunteers arrived on scene as the Shannon-based Irish Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 115 had located the casualty some distance from shore and winched a crew member to the water to assist her.

The girl — who was found to be distressed and had swallowed water — was assessed on board the lifeboat before being taken back to Beal Strand, from where she was transferred to Rescue 115 and flown to University Hospital Kerry in Tralee as a precaution.

Press officer Charlie Glynn said: “Thankfully this rescue had a successful outcome and the young girl was reunited with her family.”

He added: “As the current Covid-19 restrictions continue to apply, the RNLI are fully operational and on call 24/7. We ask everyone to follow Government travel instructions.”

Dun Laoghaire RNLI crew on the inshore lifeboat Realt Na Mara | Photo: RNLI/Liam Mullan

Elsewhere yesterday, Dun Laoghaire RNLI launched its inshore lifeboat to a vessel with four on board believed to be sinking in Dublin Bay.

On arrival at the scene it was found the boat was not taking on water but had mechanical issues, and the lifeboat took it under tow to the safety of Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

Edward Totterdell, Dun Laoghaire RNLI’s deputy launching authority, said: “It has been a busy week for our station and volunteer crew having responded to four callouts from the Irish Coast Guard so far.

“It is important to highlight the RNLI and Irish Coast Guard’s message this week asking people to take extra care when using the sea.

“Dun Laoghaire RNLI remains on call and is fully operational during the coronavirus pandemic. While there is no crew training or exercises taking place, our volunteers are here if people need us.”

Proposals for a ‘food court’ at Dun Laoghaire Harbour’s currently vacant ferry terminal have been welcomed by one leading local stakeholder.

In a written submission seen by Afloat.ie, Alistair Rumball of the Irish National Sailing & Powerboat School supports the new plans as “the harbour area badly needs year-round footfall, employment, visitors and economic activity, that this change of use both facilitates and drives”.

As reported last month on Afloat.ie, the change is being sought on behalf of Lapetus Investments Ltd to replace the proposed ground floor restaurant and drink vending elements of planning permission approved last year for a mixed-used co-working development at the St Michael’s Pier site.

Rumball adds that, from the standpoint of his more than 40 years of experience in the marine industry, he believes this change of use “will not impinge on the use of berths alongside the former ferry terminal building for commercial vessels, nor restrict a future ferry service”.

The final date for observations on this planning application is this coming Monday 20 January.

Planning permission is being sought to convert the ground floor of Dun Laoghaire’s ferry terminal building into a ‘food court’.

A site notice posted Tuesday 3 December on behalf of Lapetus Investments Ltd announces the intention to replace the proposed ground floor restaurant and food and drink vending elements of planning permission approved last year for a mixed-use co-working development at the St Michael’s Pier site.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has confirmed that there are no charges to view current planning applications that are online or if you visit County Hall on Marine Road.

A submission or observation may be made in writing to the planning authority on payment of a fee of €20 within five weeks of receipt of the application by the authority.

Update: A previous version of this article stated that the planning application may be inspected or purchased “for a fee not exceeding a reasonable cost of making a copy” at the offices of Dun Laoughaire-Rathdown County Council’s planning department during public hours (weekdays 10am to 4pm). This has since been corrected by DLRCoCo.

Two scuba divers were rescued on Dublin Bay this afternoon by Dun Laoghaire RNLI after the pair became separated from their boat.

The incident occurred shortly before 3 pm when the divemaster on the surface reported the overdue divers to the Irish Coast Guard.

Dun Laoghaire RNLI All-Weather lifeboat was requested to launch immediately along with the Irish Coast Guard Rescue 116 helicopter based at Dublin Airport. The Dublin Port Pilot boat also responded to the ‘Pan-Pan’ alert and joined in the search close to Dalkey Island. The Dun Laoghaire RNLI Inshore lifeboat was also preparing to launch.

The RNLI All-Weather lifeboat located the casualties south-east of the Muglins Rock fifteen minutes after launching. The two divers had drifted approximately three-quarters of a nautical mile from their dive site. Conditions on scene included a difficult swell left-over from the tide flowing against a fresh northerly wind.

Both casualties were taken on board the lifeboat and taken back to Dun Laoghaire to a waiting HSE ambulance for precautionary checks. Both had been in the water for more than one hour when rescued.

‘This is the outcome that we always hope for and comes from co-operation and training between all the agencies involved,’ commented Stephen Wynne, Lifeboat Operations Manager at Dun Laoghaire RNLI. ‘The casualties remained calm, followed procedure and linked together to ensure they could be spotted.’

Plastic fibres released during construction on the Dun Laoghaire baths site last year have again washed up on nearby beaches, as The Irish Times reports.

The plastic shards were washed into the water during a concrete pour at the development last November, prompting a safety advisory for swimmers and beach-goers between the West Pier and the Forty Foot.

A clean-up operation was launched at the time which recovered 50kg of the 70kg of plastic strands released.

Now a volunteer clean-up group says some of the unrecovered plastic reappeared at Sandycove on Thursday ahead of Storm Lorenzo.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.

Mark Twain used to say that you should never get into a row with anyone who buys ink by the barrel. But last weekend The Irish Times, our national Paper of Record, ran a Weekend Review feature about the problematical relationship of Dun Laoghaire with its harbour, a two-article feature which concentrated largely on the town’s urban blight of shuttered shops and commercial dereliction at its centre, while giving only scant attention to the waterfront and the harbour, with their problems and potentials for development and better interaction with the town.

It all initially sounded well-meaning and timely, in view of the fact that the 17th September is the closing date for €200,000 worth of contracts – two of them – for tenders for surveys providing expert economic and strategic advice about how the blighted parts of the town might be revived, and how the harbour might be more usefully developed.

A town and its harbour – in Dun Laoghaire, inter-community attitudes are shaped by many other elements in addition to the fact that road and railway create a physical divide for part of the waterfront. Photo Barrow Coakley/Simon Coate

Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council took over control of the harbour only as recently as late last year, so it will take time for an attitude of joined-up thinking regarding the relationship of town and harbour to develop properly. As it is, the very framing of these tenders shows that the attitude of seeing town and harbour as separate entities still persists, as one set of expert advice is sought for the regeneration of “Dun Laoghaire’s town centre adjacent to the harbour”, while the other is one is “seeking expert advice for the development of the harbour for the benefit of its citizens”.

But however they go about it, the situation is a matter of some urgency, as they’re immediately faced with a major problem. Since the Dun Laoghaire ferry port ceased functioning in 2015, the harbour has an increasingly significant deficit in its maintenance budget.

It’s a serious situation, involving everyone. In view of that, somebody has to say that The Irish Times feature was a travesty of what such an overview should be. While a succession of traders and politicians in the town were interviewed about its problems of urban blight, and the problems of its high-maintenance harbour, not one interview was conducted with anyone who is active in any way around the harbour, whether as a marine trader or sailor or boat or watersports enthusiast in any form whatsoever.

Yet it was a research mission and ensuing feature which seemed at first to merit serious attention. The articles - given considerable prominence - were by two of the paper’s most distinguished contributors: journalist Jennifer O’Connell and economist David McWilliams. It must have been given some thought. But even on ploughing through it a second time, we still couldn’t find any suggestion that either had talked to anyone other than local business people or politicians. There wasn’t so much as the tiniest cheep - neither from the Dun Laoghaire boating and sailing community nor from the businesses which specifically serve their needs - about what their hopes for harbour and waterfront development and relationships with the town might be.

David McWilliams now has skin in the game. As anyone who reads his usually stimulating columns will be aware, having for some time been a pillar of Dalkey intellectual society, he and his family have recently moved to a substantial waterfront house beside Dun Laoghaire harbour. So he must see some future in the place. And who knows, but maybe some time he might take an active interest in boats beyond seeing them as some sort of ornaments which help to remind him that he is in the desirable position of living beside the sea.

Summer in Dun Laoghaire – in such a setting, harmony between land and sea should come naturally. Photo Peter Barrow

As for Jennifer O’Connell, she seems to live somewhere beyond The Pale, but in terms of working as an Irish Times columnist and reporter, she makes the Duracell Bunny look like a complete and utter layabout, with her lengthy article on Dun Laoghaire making our usual Sailing on Saturday long-form story look like a quick post-it message.

But even she – in her long and detailed piece – has managed to avoid the boat folk. Now admittedly in her sprint through a couple of those sadder Dun Laoghaire shopping streets that you find as you move inland from the increasingly chic waterfront, she did chat with Australian sailor Bruce Du Ve, who has settled in Dun Laoghaire, and some of you will know him. But it emerged that the reason for the interview is because Bruce is running an acupuncture clinic in Dun Laoghaire, and thus is seen as a representative local businessman.

The nearest he was allowed to talk about sailing was in making the point that when a breeze blows through Dun Laoghaire’s granite-hard streets, regardless of its suitability or otherwise for sailing such a breeze inevitably seems to carry an indecent amount of litter with it, and Bruce wonders why it is so difficult to clean the streets. Reasonable enough, perhaps. But what Bruce thinks about sailing in Dun Laoghaire is left as a matter for speculation.

The Water Wags have been racing in Dun Laoghaire since 1887, with the present class dating to 1900. The magnificently-built 200-year-old granite harbour seems so much a part of the seascape and the land beside it that the locals tend to see it as a natural feature of Dublin Bay. Photo: W M Nixon
Maybe that’s a very subtle technique of High Journalism for keeping us interested. Whatever, we’ve been here before on the conundrum of the Dun Laoghaire and its harbour situation, and God knows, we’ll be here again. But its approaching wave of new attention thanks to that tendering date of just ten days hence brings it top of the bill right now.

Thus for journalists and others seriously hoping to find out how Dun Laoghaire is currently inter-acting positively with the sea and sailing and boating, a logical first stop would be a discussion with Kenneth Rumball of the Irish National Sailing and Powerboat School, which is located in a hyper-busy little building on the quayside in the somewhat hidden southwest corner of the Inner Harbour. Size-for-size since its establishment by Kenneth’s father Alistair in 1974, the INSS has done more to introduce complete newcomers to sailing and boating in Ireland than any other comparable organisation.

Alistair Rumball (left) founder in 1974 of the Irish National Sailing School in Dun Laoghaire, with his wife Muriel and son Kenneth, current School Director. Photo: W M Nixon
The figures run into the tens of thousands and have included crews who have been taken right to the top for competition in both the Round Ireland and Fastnet Races, in both of which the INSS boat has won her class.

As for the school, while it is of course a private enterprise business extremely efficiently run, it is almost like a classic mutual society company in many ways, and within its setup is a proper sailing club, complete with committee and flag officers, such that those who start from scratch as beginner sailors with the INSS can go all the way to recognised sailing competition at local, national and international level, all under the INSS umbrella.

Thus the breadth and depth of experience at the INSS about what people new to sailing expect from Dun Laoghaire Harbour now and in the future is unrivalled. Yet did either of the journalists creating The Irish Times feature of a week ago contact Kenneth Rumball or one of his colleagues? No, they did not.

At a different level of interaction with the sailing community of Dun Laoghaire is the marine store of Viking Marine in Marine Road, plumb in the middle of the relatively new Pavilion Development. Viking Marine reflects the growing vitality and style of Dun Laoghaire’s classic waterfront as the years of the harbour being a ferryport recede into history.

Admittedly Dun Laoghaire ferryport was never a seriously unpleasant place like Dover, or the scruffily spread-out ferryport area that we find in Holyhead. But even so, the regular throughput of shiploads of cars and trucks was detrimental to the style and atmosphere of the waterfront, and now that the heavy trucks are no longer blighting the narrow roads, the area is being re-born.

Work or play? Ian O’Meara of Viking Marine in Dun Laoghaire at his favourite sport off his favourite town. Photo Afloat.ie/David O’Brien

Consequently Viking Marine is at the very heart of what Dun Laoghaire’s future might be. But did The Irish Times make any contact whatever with Ian O’Meara, Managing Director of Viking Marine. No, they did not.

Yet with Ian O’Meara they would have found in one notably savvy person a very complete and thoughtful projection of how the relationship of Dun Laoghaire and its harbour could usefully be developed. Not only does he run one of the most successful shops in the town, but he’s an active sailor himself, very much part of the front-line sailing community - so much so, in fact, that he was a key crewmember on the winning boat in 2019’s biennial staging of the rugged Dun Laoghaire to Dingle Race.

But despite Ian O’Meara’s very special position in the centre of the marine leisure retail/customer dynamic in Dun Laoghaire, The Irish Times didn’t see fit to draw on his unique knowledge and experience. Nor did they chat with Paal Janson, manager of the extensive and award-winning Dun Laoghaire Marina.

Paal Janson of Dun Laoghaire Marina. Photo: Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
No contact seems to have been made either with any of the four waterfront yacht clubs, despite the fact that they make an exemplary job of utilizing and running their very limited spaces while providing the sailing and training programmes which give Dun Laoghaire Harbour its favourable international image, even if parts of the town behind it seeming to be unable to keep up with the new pace and style. And even Irish Sailing, the National Authority which is headquartered in Dun Laoghaire, seems to have been unaware that The Irish Times were in town on this research project.

So why has Dun Laoghaire town never really interacted comfortably in modern times with its massive 200 years old harbour, which is such a magnificent piece of granite construction that most folk think of it as a natural feature, whereas it is just about artificial as it can get – its brilliant use of granite simply deludes us.

It was never built to be a port. It was built as a harbour of shelter primarily to meet the needs of the ships of British imperial power. Thus there is a totally inadequate landward space to serve the needs of a port in the trading and commercial sense. And though the use of it as a ferryport worked fine in the great days of rail travel when Carlisle Pier – a railway station and ship quay on stilts operational from 1859 - was ingeniously inserted in a piece of design brilliance such that it looked to be an integral part of the whole thing, when railways were superseded by road transport, Dun Laoghaire began to become a disaster area.

The glory days of Dun Laoghaire as a ferry port, when Victorian engineering ingenuity inserted the Carlisle Pier into the harbour in 1859 as though it had always been there, in order to bring Ireland’s growing railway system into direct contact with the cross-channel ferry service. It was neat and economical of space, with no need for huge car and truck marshalling yards.

Cynics may point out that Dun Laoghaire’s years of administrative malfunction roughly coincide with the inauguration of the new Irish state. That’s probably too simplistic, but it is a fact that all efforts to modify the harbour for the accommodation of Ro-Ro ferries have ended with environmental messes which sometimes didn’t even get properly cleared away when their usefulness has ceased.

When Carlisle Pier was irretrievably cut off from the main rail network because rail transport was rapidy declining in the face of road growth while the Dun Laoghaire line itself was becoming a significant part of the new DART commuter system, the pier was gradually reduced in its usefulness. For a while, a now mercifully forgotten Ro-Ro berth was spatch-cocked on to the East Pier just north of the National Yacht Club. In this case, its detritus was cleared away when British rail introduced a new much larger ship which required a real cat’s cradle of ramp facilities right in front of the Royal St George Yacht Club, leading to a ramp attached to the west side of the now-decaying Carlisle Pier.

Then came the advent of the even bigger cross-channel HSS (High Speed Ship). A giant and expensive-to-run object which floated and went fast (you would hardly call it a ship), it provided much entertainment for kids learning sailing in the new Laser class, as they challenged each other to sail under the length of it between the hulls. But whether or not it made money was always a moot point, and it didn’t do to be on the last sailing cross-channel of the day, as they could sometimes run at slow speed to save fuel costs, and you’d invariably arrive late.

The enormous but unused car marshalling yards and ferry terminal buildings installed at St Michael’s Wharf, with the Royal St George YC and the National YC beyond. At present, it seems that the legal situation regarding the very existence of the St Michael’s Wharf installations may be a matter of debate. Photo Barrow Coakley/Simon Coate
Regardless of that, the Irish authorities had rolled over and collaborated in the building of an enormous terminal complex, complete with huge offices and reception halls and whatever, right in the middle of the Dun Laoghaire waterfront at St Michael’s Wharf, while Carlisle Pier to the southeastward was more or less abandoned.

But, challenged by newer and more nimble ferries operating out of the cost-cutting and rapidly-developing Dublin Port which offered quicker access via the Port Tunnel to the fast-growing Irish motorway system, Dun Laoghaire as a ferryport was commercially doomed. In today’s circumstances, you would need a motorway-standard dual carriageway direct from the St Michael’s Wharf ferry terminal complex to the nearest part of the M50 in order for the Dun Laoghaire route to be successful. It would probably cost as much as the HS2 rail-link looks like costing in England (if the HS2 is ever built), but the Dun Laoghaire Harbour to M50 superlink is definitely a non-starter.

As for the brief flirtation with creating a cruise-liner berth, fortunately that was stopped by community action and an increasing awareness that big cruise liners are a high-pollution snare and a delusion. Most of their passengers don’t bother to go ashore, so the main benefit is only in berthing charges, while the few who do go ashore are on bus tours to the nearest internationally-recognised tourism magnets, with the fees for the buses paid as part of the all-up cruise package back in Minneapolis or Beijing or wherever, so only the bus operators benefit, and not the local traders.

Thus now we have Dun Laoghaire, more popular than ever as a sailing centre of international repute, the lungs of the city for those thousands who are just gasping for a bit of sea air, and an increasingly fashionable place to live on the waterfront as environment-harming commercial transport activity reduces.

Classic Dun Laoghaire sailing – more popular today than ever. Photo Afloat.ie/David O’Brien
It would seem the most natural thing in the world for town and harbour to move harmoniously together. Yet it is faced with the double problem of how to bring the town behind it up to the level of vitality which the harbour and its waterfront is increasingly manifesting, and how to pay for the maintenance of that harbour which ultimately is the making of the town.

The basic vitality of the harbour manifests itself that despite the fact that, over the years, the authorities officially charged with its administration of it have left behind areas of abandoned dereliction. Looking at the waterfront and its many “units” from seaward provides a clear message which speaks volumes about which sector – public or semi-private - provides the better administration.

The most visible section of Dun Laoghaire’s waterfront, with the National Yacht Club, the Royal St George Yacht Club, and the Royal Irish Yacht Club very much alive and active, while between them are the “dead” areas of Carlisle Pier and St Michael’s Wharf. Photo: Barrow Coakley/Simon Coate
The waterfront premises in this category directly interacting with the sea are (going from east to west):

• National Yacht Club: overall voluntary administrators with professional management - very well run.
• RNLI: professionally managed with volunteers – excellent.
• Carlisle Pier: officially managed, a neglected disgrace.
• Royal St George Yacht Club: overall voluntary administraors, professionally managed, very well run.
• St Michael’s Wharf Ferry Terminal: Officially run large unused space with extensive Ferry Terminal Buildings, currently in limbo as official status and existence of Foreshore Licence has not been clarified.
• Dun Laoghaire Marina: Commercial marina with 830 berths, professionally run to an award-winning standard.
• Royal Irish Yacht Club: overall voluntary administrators, professional management, very well run.
• Irish Lights Main Shore Facility and HQ: professionally run National Lights Authority.
• Irish Sailing’s Performance Sailing Base: professionally managed, well run.
• MGM Boats: Boat sales and boatyard services with Travel Hoist: A vital commercial facility which is well run despite being in premises which are limited by the intrusion of some original features of the 200-year-old harbour
• Coal Harbour (aka Inner Harbour): Mainly under official management, limited by presence of features from original harbour and location of under-utilised former Coastguard Building, entire setup too ready to avail of income from car-parking for nearby railway station.
• St Michael’s Rowing Club: Hugely effective voluntary organisation which functions very successfully despite its shoreside premises being in a cave-like space under one of the raised roadways which remain as part of the original harbour.
• Irish National Sailing School: Commercial operation which very effectively introduces hundreds to sailing and boating each year, yet manages to create a club-like atmosphere in rather restricted premises.
• Dun Laoghaire Motor Yacht Club: Friendly voluntarily-run club with some professional input which makes the very best of restricted quayside premises.

Tough training with one of the coastal rowing skiffs of St Michael’s Rowing Club. Photo: W M Nixon

That is only a very basic list. There are many workers in the marine industry who manage to function all along Dun Laoghaire currently disjointed waterfront, but who know that it could all be so much better if only the town and harbour had a more cohesive sense of themselves together, and if in turn the waterfront could itself be allowed to function in a more concerted way.

But now that the council finally has control of Dun Laoghaire Harbour, ideas which have been bubbling beneath the surface for some time are beginning to emerge, and with a certain logic it looks as though the first steps will be taken to re-purpose the Carisle Pier, that part of the waterfront which has been the longest neglected.

A specialist group from Irish Sailing and Dun Laoghaire Rathdown Council have been exploring and developing ideas for a National Watersports Campus with a new building on the east side of the inner end of the Carlisle Pier with sea access on the west side. “Access” is the key to it all – the National Watersports Campus would be very much a public facility which would provide a user-friendly route to interaction with boats and Dun Laoghaire Harbour and Dublin Bay and the sea beyond.

The proposed National Watersports Campus and Municipal Sailing Centre will bring the Carlisle Pier back to lifeThe location of the proposed Municipal Sailing Centre and National Watersports Campus is at the head of the Carlisle Pier between the Royal St George YC and the National YC
Clearly the loss of the car-parking currently provided for want of anything better to do with Carlisle Pier is going to be something of a problem. But it should be said that car-parking is something which deserves much more attention nationally and internationally than it currently receives. They should have university departments specializing in it, for it affects most of us, and taking the easiest options of open space parking now means, for instance, that the USA has enough designated car-parks to cover the entire state of Connecticut. This may seem only tangential to the problems of Dun Laoghaire, but already elsewhere in the harbour the soft option of “making it a car park” has been too readily used.

Anyway, with the new National Watersports Campus brought into being on Carlisle Pier, we move next to St Michaels Wharf and the vast expanses of the former ferryport. It cries out for a built development. If they could only sort out whether or not its very existence is legal in the first place, there’s still enormous potential in the option of developing some of the Terminal Buildings as a growing tech hub, but equally I don’t see why it shouldn’t be seen in terms of residential development.

An area of enormous potential. By developing all of the St Michael’s Wharf space for residential use and as a tech hub, a significant part of Dun Laoghaire town would in effect be moved into the middle of the harbour, thereby strengthening the links between the two. Photo: Barrow Coakley/Simon Coate

It wouldn’t be the kind of place where you could comfortably raise a typical Irish family, but it would be ideal for more senior residents who enjoy being beside the sea and in the midst of living activity, yet can no longer be an active part of all of it.

David McWilliam rightly makes the point that developing Dun Laoghaire properly will lead to an interface between the public and private sector, but frankly if the St Michael’s Wharf spaces are going to be attractively developed for some residential use, it will need the inspired input of the private sector, though perhaps under reasonably strict controls.

By making St Michael’s Wharf partly residential, we strengthen the links between town and harbour by literally creating a new part of the town into the middle of the harbour. You would be surprised by how well such new developments can work.

But in taking an overview of possible re-development of the Dun Laoghaire waterfront’s under-utilised spaces, we should remember that one of the shop-keepers to whom Jennifer O’Connell talked spoke of the need to make Dun Laoghaire a tourist magnet “like Howth”.

Just three of the unplanned mix of buildings on the West Pier in Howth include (left to right) the former Customs House (it may be needed again with Brexit), the Harbour Masters Office, and Aqua Restaurant in the former Howth Yacht Club building

You should be careful what you wish for, Madam. Howth is sometimes over-run. Nevertheless, all the Dun Laoghaire waterfront developments we’ve referred to thus far will be carefully-planned and inevitably modern-looking buildings. In contrast, the quaint charm of Howth’s West Pier with its many restaurants, fish shop and whatever is that it was not planned in any way at all. In fact, once the modern harbour had emerged in its current shape in the mid-1980s, the OPW – the Office of Public Works - saw itself still as the OPW, but this time it was as the Office of Public Wrecking.

They wanted to knock every bockety little building along the West Pier in order to create more room for fish lorries and other industrial traffic, and the plan was to move any still existing highly-individualistic little businesses into a nearby and ever so modern Business Park.

Fortunately, official inertia and probably a convenient national financial crisis prevented anything further happening in the destruction department, and after the empty buildings had remained so for some time, private enterprise finally got its way and took them over for the present cheerful visitor-attracting selection of retail outlets of all kinds.

It all happened by happy accident. But you can’t plan happy accidents. Nevertheless I would suggest that as the east end pf the Dun Laoghaire Harbour waterfront right along as far westward as the Irish Lights premises is going to be under a formalized look, as a bit of welcome contrast we should take a radical overview of the entire Inner Harbour – the Coal Harbour area if you prefer – to see how it could be allowed to become a characterful Dun Laoghaire version of the vieux port which you’ll find in any half decent French harbour of character.

There’s far more space down towards the Coal Harbour than you’d think – it only seems limited because that great big ramp road down to Trader’s Wharf or whatever it’s called cuts the area in two. Immediately east of the ramp, there’s the old coastguard station, which is surely ripe for multiple craft and character uses and could be the centre of a new/old harbourside village if only that big ramp thing could be done away with altogether, for there are already two other ways of accessing the inner harbour.

The hidden site with potential for the Old Dunleary Harbour Village. At present divided by the large ramp road - half of which is used for parking - the area between Irish Lights and the Coal Harbour includes the old Coastguard Station which could be the central focus for a characterful small-scale development. Photo: Barrow Coakley/Simon Coate

The potential is enormous. But in the first instance, Dun Laoghaire town has to get its act together regarding the changeover from retail to residential, for the narrow streets in the heart of the old town are really only capable of supporting about a third of the shop premises – many already boarded up – which give the place such a sad air.

So the “old town” becomes much more residential, but with a growth in the proportion of service-providing retail outlets, while new life is given to the waterfront with the National Watersports Campus on the Carlisle Pier and an impressive residential and tech hub on the St Michael’s Wharf site.

Along to the west we’ll have the new yet characterful Old Dunleary Harbour Village gathered around the old Coastguard Building, a place with a variety of eating places including some so new and trendy that they’ll be discovered for the rest of the world by the Restaurant Critic of The Irish Times, and so the Paper of Record can make friends again with people who actually live and work in the Dun Laoghaire waterfront area.

“If Dun Laoghaire can’t thrive in a period of economic recovery, the feeling seems to be, what hope is there for everywhere else?

“What chance have towns less blessed with abundant natural amenities, an affluent population, proximity to the capital, a large harbour and the sea?”

That’s the question posed in Jennifer O’Connell’s exploration for The Irish Times today (Saturday 31 August) of Dun Laoghaire and its issues with reviving a town centre in decline, and generating revenue from a port where maintenance costs will only rise.

With the harbour’s new custodians, Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council, seeking strategic advice for a new economic plan, local politicians and business interests have differing views as to what it could achieve.

That’s based on the lack of progress in many other proposals in recent years, from visions of an urban beach to a floating hotel and a new digital hub — while a major cruise liner berth was the latest idea to be abandoned.

The Irish Times has much more on the story HERE.

Dun Laoghaire RNLI launched to a 34ft yacht unexpectedly dismasted while sailing near Dalkey Island yesterday afternoon (Sunday 25 August).

The skipper aboard the yacht was able to call the coastguard by VHF radio, and the volunteer lifeboat crew were requested to launch the all-weather Anna Livia at 2.15pm in calm conditions, Dun Laoghaire RNLI reports.

Once on the scene, the lifeboat crew checked that the skipper was safe and uninjured, then he and his yacht were towed back to Dun Laoghaire.

Speaking after the callout, Dun Laoghaire RNLI’s coxswain Mark McGibney said: “In this situation where the yacht unexpectedly dismasted, the skipper was able to alert the coastguard as thankfully he had a backup handheld VHF radio. It is also essential to always carry a means of communication.”

Hours before, Larne RNLI was requested to launch by Belfast coastguard to reports of a sinking vessel with two people on board.

Launching both of their lifeboats, Larne RNLI’s volunteer crew made their way towards the casualty vessel’s reported position, just outside of Larne Harbour.

While en route, the inshore lifeboat Terry was stopped by a passing pleasure craft which reported they had recovered the two people from the casualty vessel, who were found to be safe and well and were returned to shore on the all-weather lifeboat.

Larne RNLI inspect the submerged vessel | Photo: RNLI/Derek Rea

Later both lifeboats were requested to survey the casualty vessel to see if anything could be salvaged — but by then it was mostly submerged, as Larne RNLI reports.

Earlier in this Bank Holiday weekend for Northern Ireland, Kilkeel RNLI launched late on Friday (23 August) to attend a 10m yacht with two on board which had become stranded with a rope in the propeller.

Kilkee RNLI says the volunteer crew located the yacht Villa Vilja — which was on passage from Tromso, Norway to the Caribbean — seven miles north-east of Kilkeel in freshening conditions.

And with the yacht tossing about in the rough seas, the lifeboat helm brought the lifeboat safely aside and a crew member boarded the yacht to check all was well to establish a tow.

Despite the challenging conditions, the yacht was brought safely into Kilkeel Harbour where the local coastguard team ensured it was safely and securely berthed at the pontoon.

Kilkeel RNLI lifeboat operations manager John Fisher said: “The transfer of a crew member to another vessel is a manoeuvre the crew often practice but with both boats being tossed about, the transfer was particularly difficult — but was managed, as usual, in a very safe professional manner and we wish the sailors a safe onward passage to the Caribbean.”

Ireland’s biggest triathlon of 2019 comes to Dun Laoghaire this weekend as IRONMAN 70.3 Dun Laoghaire brings premier athletes from across the island and around the globe to Dublin Bay.

Sunday 25 August is the date for the three-part race that comprises a 2km swim from Sandycove around Scotsman’s Bay, a 90km cycle route that rounds the Wicklow Mountains via Roundwood, and a 21km run finishing at Dun Laoghaire Harbour.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council has listed a number of temporary road closures throughout the town and surrounding areas over the weekend around the event.

Local access will be maintained where possible and diversions clearly signposted, the local authority says.

Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council is inviting tenders for expert economic and strategic advice for Dun Laoghaire Harbour, which came under its control late last year.

The request for tenders (RFT), which is open until Tuesday 17 September, says the local authority is “seeing expert advice on the development of the harbour for the benefit of its citizens”.

The move comes three months after the authority withdrew controversial plans for a €30 million berth for cruise liners in the harbour, as previously reported on Afloat.ie.

A separate RFT also seeks “expert economic, spatial and strategic advice” for Dun Laoghaire’s town centre adjacent to the harbour.

“In recent times, development in the town has been largely focused on increasing residential capacity with a consequential decrease in the amount of small-scale commercial office floor space available for employment uses locally and a reduction in the overall number of jobs located within the town,” the local authority says.

It adds that the Government’s Urban Regeneration and Development Fund “provided an opportunity for Dun Laoghaire-Rathdown County Council through a Category B application to carry out a study of the economic profile of the town, examine the changing nature of office-based development, make recommendations in relation to future potential economic opportunities and identify infrastructure deficits that exist in the town”.

Relevant documents for each RFT are available to download from the official links above (login required).