"Ilen came back from London so quickly we got ahead of ourselves" said Ilen Marine School Director Gary MacMahon in Baltimore today, where the Limerick trading ketch had prudently put into port yesterday (Monday)
evening in acknowledgement of near-gale westerlies forecast for the Blasket Islands area.
"To be quite honest" he continued, "we were exhausted. The London visit had been so hectic with unexpected visitors turning up in the gaps in the scheduled programmme that a night's rest without social and sea-going pressures in Baltimore seemed very appealing. The crossing of the Celtic Sea had been fast but bumpy, with plenty of salt-water flying around - our decks have never been cleaner. And while we're here, we can get a couple of jobs done by Liam Hegarty before heading on to Limerick in a day or two".
Two particularly memorable though unexpected visitors in London were international architect Ian Ritchie and his wife. He designed the Dublin Spire in O'Connell Street, and was fascinated to see what a qualified
architect like Conor O'Brien had made of the project to design Ilen way back in 1925-26.