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Displaying items by tag: Robert Livingstone

Ireland's largest residential activity centre, Share Holiday Village is proud to announce that the third annual brites Lough Erne Canoe Rally will take place on 25th and 26th September 2010.

This year the event, which attracts paddlers from all over Ireland, is set to have more of an environmental message as SHARE was heavily affected by the Fermanagh Floods in 2009, which some have attributed to the heavy rainfall associated with Global Warming. Indeed canoeing is the perfect platform in which to promote this environmental message to local schools and businesses as it is one of the more idyllic forms of recreation that can be enjoyed on Lough Erne.

Both Share and brites are leaders in the field of renewable energy. Over the past 10 years Share has installed the largest reed-bed water purification plant in Northern Ireland and has built up an extensive portfolio of renewable technologies. These include three wind turbines, four solar water heating systems, and four wood pellet burners. The fuel for these wood pellet burners is supplied by Balcas, the manufacturers of brites. Share can now boast of using 99% renewable electricity on site, and 90% renewable heat, resulting in a total overall offset of CO2 of almost 300 tonnes.

Paula Keelagher, brites Technical Development Manager, at Fermanagh based Balcas comments: "We are delighted to be supporting the Lough Erne Canoe Rally once again. It has been great to see the event develop over the last two years and we look forward to seeing many local companies, schools and organisations taking part this year. We will of course be entering into the spirit of the competition with our own brites team and wish everyone who is participating the best of luck."

Chris Scott, Marketing Officer, Countryside Access and Activities Network (CAAN) which the event also helps to promote comments; "It is great to see Share hosting such a professionally organised event on the Lough Erne Canoe Trail. The brites Lough Erne Canoe Rally is a fantastic showcase for this award winning trail. The event doesn't take itself too seriously, fun is the focus highlighted by the fact most points are awarded for the fancy dress competition on Saturday evening."

The event is set to make quite a splash amongst canoeing enthusiasts as Robert Livingstone, Share's Operations Manager, describes: "It is great to see the canoeing clubs, classes and organisations come on board to help promote the event. The competitive fancy dress element and the strict event rules with regard to using the same boat for all disciplines will make the event unique and lots and lots of fun for all involved. We are delighted to welcome back Boots and Paddles for the Special Olympics section of the event and hope that we can develop a similar group on Lough Erne".

For more information on the brites Lough Erne Canoe Rally and other outdoor activity packages please contact Rory – Share Marketing Officer on 028 6772 2122 or [email protected] or visit http://www.sharevillage.org/upcoming-courses-and-events/

Published in Canoeing

Ireland's Trading Ketch Ilen

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

Designed by Limerick man Conor O’Brien and built in Baltimore in 1926, she was delivered by Munster men to the Falkland Islands where she served valiantly for seventy years, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties.

Returned now to Ireland and given a new breath of life, Ilen may be described as the last of Ireland’s timber-built ocean-going sailing ships, yet at a mere 56ft, it is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

Wooden Sailing Ship Ilen FAQs

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional wooden sailing ships.

The Ilen was designed by Conor O’Brien, the first Irish man to circumnavigate the world.

Ilen is named for the West Cork River which flows to the sea at Baltimore, her home port.

The Ilen was built by Baltimore Sea Fisheries School, West Cork in 1926. Tom Moynihan was foreman.

Ilen's wood construction is of oak ribs and planks of larch.

As-built initially, she is 56 feet in length overall with a beam of 14 feet and a displacement of 45 tonnes.

Conor O’Brien set sail in August 1926 with two Cadogan cousins from Cape Clear in West Cork, arriving at Port Stanley in January 1927 and handed it over to the new owners.

The Ilen was delivered to the Falkland Islands Company, in exchange for £1,500.

Ilen served for over 70 years as a cargo ship and a ferry in the Falkland Islands, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties. She stayed in service until the early 1990s.

Limerick sailor Gary McMahon and his team located Ilen. MacMahon started looking for her in 1996 and went out to the Falklands and struck a deal with the owner to bring her back to Ireland.

After a lifetime of hard work in the Falklands, Ilen required a ground-up rebuild.

A Russian cargo ship transported her back on a 12,000-mile trip from the Southern Oceans to Dublin. The Ilen was discharged at the Port of Dublin 1997, after an absence from Ireland of 70 years.

It was a collaboration between the Ilen Project in Limerick and Hegarty’s Boatyard in Old Court, near Skibbereen. Much of the heavy lifting, of frames, planking, deadwood & backbone, knees, floors, shelves and stringers, deck beams, and carlins, was done in Hegarty’s. The generally lighter work of preparing sole, bulkheads, deck‐houses fixed furniture, fixtures & fittings, deck fittings, machinery, systems, tanks, spar making and rigging is being done at the Ilen boat building school in Limerick.

Ten years. The boat was much the worse for wear when it returned to West Cork in May 1998, and it remained dormant for ten years before the start of a decade-long restoration.

Ilen now serves as a community floating classroom and cargo vessel – visiting 23 ports in 2019 and making a transatlantic crossing to Greenland as part of a relationship-building project to link youth in Limerick City with youth in Nuuk, west Greenland.

At a mere 56ft, Ilen is capable of visiting most of the small harbours of Ireland.

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