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Displaying items by tag: Report Brexit Effect

The impact of Brexit across many sectors in the South West, in particular in agriculture, finance, and industry is revealed in a new report that shows Cork’s long history of trade with Europe has helped to cushion the worst effects of Brexit for the city and the wider region.

The report, ‘Cork and the Brexit Effect’, published by University College Cork, looked at Brexit’s consequences for the Cork region.

It was developed with local business, the tourism sector, higher education, and arts and culture stakeholders across Cork.

The report noted that relations and links between Cork, the North, and the UK have been affected by the fallout from Brexit.

It showed, however, that while visits to the Republic of Ireland from Britain and the North fell following Brexit, the Cork region was comparatively less affected by shifting tourist numbers than other parts of Ireland.

The report also suggests that Brexit has presented Cork with new opportunities and highlights how, since Brexit, the Port of Cork has seen its number of direct shipping routes to continental Europe increase as producers look to avoid the UK land-bridge.

EchoLive has more on the report that also examines aspects on the EU’s second-largest English-speaking city

Published in Port of Cork

The Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) Information

The creation of the Irish Cruiser Racing Association (ICRA) began in a very low key way in the autumn of 2002 with an exploratory meeting between Denis Kiely, Jim Donegan and Fintan Cairns in the Granville Hotel in Waterford, and the first conference was held in February 2003 in Kilkenny.

While numbers of cruiser-racers were large, their specific locations were widespread, but there was simply no denying the numerical strength and majority power of the Cork-Dublin axis. To get what was then a very novel concept up and running, this strength of numbers had to be acknowledged, and the first National Championship in 2003 reflected this, as it was staged in Howth.

ICRA was run by a dedicated group of volunteers each of whom brought their special talents to the organisation. Jim Donegan, the elder statesman, was so much more interested in the wellbeing of the new organisation than in personal advancement that he insisted on Fintan Cairns being the first Commodore, while the distinguished Cork sailor was more than content to be Vice Commodore.

ICRA National Championships

Initially, the highlight of the ICRA season was the National Championship, which is essentially self-limiting, as it is restricted to boats which have or would be eligible for an IRC Rating. Boats not actually rated but eligible were catered for by ICRA’s ace number-cruncher Denis Kiely, who took Ireland’s long-established native rating system ECHO to new heights, thereby providing for extra entries which brought fleet numbers at most annual national championships to comfortably above the hundred mark, particularly at the height of the boom years. 

ICRA Boat of the Year (Winners 2004-2019)