Menu

Ireland's sailing, boating & maritime magazine

Displaying items by tag: Independence Day

#VOLVO OCEAN RACE - The skies of Galway will explode with colour tonight with a spectacular 4th of July fireworks display to coincide with the Volvo Ocean Race finale.

The event only adds to the celebratory atmosphere in the City of the Tribes after Damian Foxall's Groupama team crossed the finish line with an unassailable lead in the overall points table - marking the first Volvo Ocean Race win for the Kerryman after four attempts.

The Independence Day event is being organised by the US Embassy in Dublin, and will include a parade through the city from Eyre Square to the Global Village at 7pm.

The eight-minute pyrotechnic and musical extravaganza will commence after dark at 10.45pm on Mutton Island, just south of The Claddagh, and will be visible throughout the city - though the prime viewing spits will be South Park, Grattan Road, Dr Colohan Road and anywhere in Salthill. 

Published in Ocean Race

The Rankin Dinghy of Cobh, Cork Harbour 

A Rankin is a traditional wooden dinghy which was built in Cobh, of which it’s believed there were 80 and of which The Rankin Dinghy Group has traced nearly half. 

The name of the Rankin dinghies is revered in Cork Harbour and particularly in the harbourside town of Cobh.

And the name of one of those boats is linked to the gunboat which fought against the Irish Volunteers during the 1916 Easter Rising and later for the emergent Irish Free State Government against anti-Treaty Forces during the Irish Civil War.

It also links the renowned boat-building Rankin family in Cobh, one of whose members crewed on the gunboat.

Maurice Kidney and Conor English are driving the restoration of the Rankin dinghies in Cork Harbour. They have discovered that Rankins were bought and sailed in several parts of the country.