Seascapes

Kieran Cotter has been the Cox of the Baltimore lifeboat for more than 30 years and is the longest-serving lifeboat volunteer in the country. He retired earlier this year and he spoke to Fergal Keane about many of the rescues he has been on. He was involved in rescues during the notorious Fastnet disaster in 1979 and also rescued former Taoiseach, Charles Haughey, when his yacht sank off Mizen Head. And Noel Sweeney takes one of the first tour boats to visit the Skelligs in nearly two years. The tours to the historic monastic site began again just last weekend, after being victims of lockdown in 2020.

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The sea journey around the world taken by the Lions rugby tour in 1950 plus the new National Marine Planning Framework (NMPF), Ireland’s first national framework for managing marine activities.

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Could the America's Cup, really be on the way to Cork. We heard from Oliver Lee in New Zealand about an audacious bid by Ireland to host the event, and the visit to Cork by an assessment team from the organisation last weekend. (pic from NZ Herald.) Lorna Siggins is on board a new ferry service from the Galway docks to the Aran Island, with skipper Shane McCole. And we visit Hegarty's boatyard in Oldcourt in Cork, to hear about the building of a replica of the historic ship, The Saoirse, which was the first boat to carry the Tricolour around the world 100 years ago.

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Sarah Courtney is a paramedic who swapped out her old job at the ambulance for a role at the Irish Coast Guard. She is the only female in the role at present and her job sees her winching people to safety, sometimes in extreme conditions. Last march she winched seven fishing crew to safety who were on board the stricken vessel the Ellie Adhamh. Noel Sweeney caught up with Sarah and fellow crewman Derek Everette at the Coast Guard base in Waterford to chat about life on board helicopter 117.

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On Seascapes this evening, we go on Ireland’s most iconic waterways. On the yacht Serendipity, Fergal Keane goes from Killaloe down the lower Shannon, through the biggest locks in the country, to the sea in Limerick. We journey through the Parteen Weir and the historic Ardnacrusha Dam and hear about the building of the country’s largest-ever construction project nearly 100 years ago.

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We report from the protest in Cork this week, when 65 trawlers went out into the city centre to protest over restrictions in the industry. And Fergal Keane visits the Haulbowline Naval Base and meets the new Irish Navy operations commander Captain Kenneth Minihane.

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Seascapes tonight visits Dun Laoghaire Harbour and hears from Tim Ryan, from Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Council, about work being carried out there to secure its future. The local authority has taken over the running of the 200-year-old harbour and we hear about the plans they have. Owen Brannigan spent decades working trawlers out of Skerries in North County Dublin and his family are still involved in the business. Owen tells Conor Sweetman about the years he spent at sea and where the fishing industry is now. GMIT student, Cian Dalton (pictured) has just won an engineering award for his invention of a robot that clears rubbish from waterways. Cian tells us about his invention and his hopes that it could be developed for use in harbours and lakes in the future.

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With Fergal Keane. Former Irish Navy Captain, Brian Fitzgerald, captained ships involved in fisheries protection, drugs raids and rescuing migrants. Brian has now started a new career with offshore energy provider, Simply Blue Energy www.simplyblueenergy.com And Noel Sweeney reports from a beach in County Kerry, where this week hundreds of thousands of large spider crabs were washed up. Kenin Flannery of Dingle Ocean World explains what happened.

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Tonight, Assistant Professor Nicholas Payne of Trinity College tells of his encounter with Basking Sharks while researching their behaviour in Irish waters. He has posted video of his close encounter on his Twitter account, @nicklpayne and there is also a link here: https://www.tcd.ie/news_events/articles/researchers-tag-basking-sharks-to-learn-more-about-irelands-gentle-giants/ Also journalist John Lichfield reports from Normandy on the "fishing war" in the waters of Jersey between France and the UK. And Lorna Siggins reports on ambitious plans for Galway Port

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Katelin and Andrew O'Shea set sail from Kinsale last July and will be spending at least the next few years sailing around the globe on their small yacht. Katelin and Andrew speak to Fergal from the Mediterranean on the last year at sea, how they prepared for the voyage and how they fund it. Follow them on Facebook or Instagram on A Nautical Change. Also, the Isolda lightship was sunk off the Irish coast by a German bomber in the early days of WWII. Eleesa Rushby is a researcher from the University of Bedfordshire who is attempting to find out more about the six Dun Laoghaire men who died in that sinking and about the survivors. Contact her via [email protected]

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