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Displaying items by tag: St John's Point

#Diving - RTÉ News reports that a man has died after a diving accident off the Donegal coast yesterday afternoon (Saturday 12 July).

The deceased, said to be in his 50s and a visitor to the area, was one of two divers who were reported in difficulty off St John's Point near Killybegs.

Bundoran RNLI's volunteer crew launched their lifeboat in response to the scene, near St John's Point Lighthouse, just after 4.30pm along with the Killybegs Coast Guard boat and the Irish Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 118.

On arrival they found that a man had been taken to shore, where he was being given CPR.

The casualty was transferred to nearby White Strand, where the helicopter could land, while CPR continued by an advanced paramedic from the lifeboat.

The man was then airlifted to Sligo General Hospital, where he later died.

His companion diver, a man in his 30s, was also transferred to the hospital.

The incident comes almost four weeks after the last diving incident in Donegal, when a man died following a rapid ascent to the surface during a dive at Malin Head.

That same weekend also saw the death of a Limerick diver at Roches Point, and since them there have been two more diving fatalities, after two men died in an incident while wreck diving off the West Cork coast earlier this month.

Published in Diving

About Conor O'Brien, Irish Circumnavigator

In 1923-25, Conor O'Brien became the first amateur skipper to circle the world south of the Great Capes. O'Brien's boat Saoirse was reputedly the first small boat (42-foot, 13 metres long) to sail around the world since Joshua Slocum completed his voyage in the 'Spray' during 1895 to 1898. It is a journey that O' Brien documented in his book Across Three Oceans. O'Brien's voyage began and ended at the Port of Foynes, County Limerick, Ireland, where he lived.

Saoirse, under O'Brien's command and with three crew, was the first yacht to circumnavigate the world by way of the three great capes: Cape Horn, Cape of Good Hope and Cape Leeuwin; and was the first boat flying the Irish tri-colour to enter many of the world's ports and harbours. He ran down his easting in the Roaring Forties and Furious Fifties between the years 1923 to 1925.

Up until O'Brien's circumnavigation, this route was the preserve of square-rigged grain ships taking part in the grain race from Australia to England via Cape Horn (also known as the clipper route).

At a Glance - Conor O'Brien's Circumnavigation 

In June 1923, Limerick man Conor O’Brien set off on his yacht, the Saoirse — named after the then newly created Irish Free State — on the two-year voyage from Dun Laoghaire Harbour that was to make him the first Irish amateur to sail around the world.

June 1923 - Saoirse’s arrival in Madeira after her maiden passage out from Dublin Bay

2nd December 1924 - Saoirse crossed the longitude of Cape Horn

June 20th 1925 - O’Brien’s return to Dun Laoghaire Harbour

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