In the third weekend of March, two nautical gatherings in the Cork area were painlessly relieved of around €5,000 for Irish lifeboats, with much of the background work to ensure that this went through smoothly being seen to by longtime RNLI collector Rose Michael of Malahide. She is well into at least her fourth and possibly fifth decade of voluntary RNLI fund-raising as the Lifeboat Institute celebrates its Bicentenary.
Though her efforts are officially targeted at the Howth Branch, as she is a member of the Irish Cruising Club and a longtime friend of the Dublin Bay Old Gaffers Association, she was able to neatly focus the March projects on both the gathering of all the leading cruising clubs for the ICC Annual Dinner in Cork City, and the DBOGA expedition to Kinsale.
Before that, in mid-February, another highlight had been the acceptance of a cheque for a cool €10,000 from nautical polymath Cormac Lowth on behalf of the many and varied participants in the “All In A Row” multi-boat event in the heart of Dublin in the River Liffey.
It was eleven years ago, with the RNLI’s Gold Medal award in 2013, that Rose Michael received the recognition she so well deserves, but if anything she has stepped up the pace since, and is a very worthy Sailor of the Month for March in this special year for the lifeboat service.
