REACHING THOUSANDS
Listenership to the MARITIME IRELAND RADIO SHOW has reached up to 14,000 which is encouraging after just five programmes of the hour-long Programme and Podcast which is available widely on Podcast services – Apple, spotify, Mixcloud, via Goole and is broadcast on seventeen Community Radio Stations around Ireland, from Clare to Galway, Mayo, Athlone, Dundalk, Dublin and Cork. This weekly newsletter is reaching an average of 3,000 each issue and there are over 3,000 followers on Twitter. All of which indicates that there is a lot of interest in the marine sphere. Thank you to all listeners and readers. This weekend we are launching the MARITIME IRELAND RADIO SHOW website, https://tommacsweeneymaritimepodcast.ie Welcome to our new website
Another Fishing Failure
Marine Minister Charlie McConalogue announced the Brexit Voluntary Temporary Fishing Vessel Tie-up Scheme for the polyvalent and beam trawl Irish fishing fleets this week. While much-needed by Irish fishermen, this is a recognition of the failure by Government to achieve for the Irish fishing industry the good deal it had promised during Brexit negotiations. It shows again the attitude of the European Union towards the Irish fishing industry, which is not supportive of encouraging a thriving Irish fishing fleet. As the MARITIME IRELAND RADIO SHOW has reported, Irish fishermen are restricted to very low catches in Irish waters while other nations are allocated much bigger catches, which are maintained for those nations, even if they do not catch the totality of what they are allowed. Why is this bias against Ireland by the EU given such little attention in the Dáil and Seanad and by the national media? If it were any other industry, it would surely be highlighted.
MARITIME STORIES THIS WEEK
1 -The Irish Coast Guard Volunteers Representative Group, the establishing of which MARITIME IRELAND RADIO SHOW reported, addressed a meeting of the Dail’s Joint Committee on Transport and Communications. It stated that morale amongst Irish Coast Guard’s volunteers is at an all-time now and claimed that a climate of fear has been instilled there by management
2 – Dublin Port Company is supporting the State’s conservation of 200-year-old records from the Four Courts fire of June 30, 1922 when the building was destroyed in the opening engagement of the Civil War. 25,000 sheets of paper and parchment were retrieved from the rubble.
3 – Fires onboard car carriers have become a serious shipping insurance loss- driver over the past decade, according to Allianz’s Global Corporate industrial subsidiary. In many cases, fires resulted in the total loss of cargo and vessel, its analysis said.45 – Ireland’s first pop-up swimming pool opened in Donabate in Co Dublin. Swim Ireland said the 12×3 metre pool is fully portable and will improve access to swimming lessons. The Government has given a grant for the purchase of a second pop-up pool. Swim Ireland hopes that one day there will be one in every county.
4 – Falling water levels on Nevada’s Lake Mead, the biggest reservoir in Clark County, Las Vegas and one of the largest reservoirs in the United States have revealed bodies. One was in a metal barrel and is being considered a homicide. Parts of another body were found on a sand bank. Police are investigating.
Welcome Home to ILEN
This week, welcome home to Limerick for the ILEN, Ireland’s last wooden sail trading ketch, after her impressive journey to London, where the ILEN crew highlighted the long-standing relationship between the city ports of Limerick and London. She put into Baltimore in West Cork on her way home, the port where she had first voyaged from after being built locally. “Ilen came back from London so quickly we got ahead of ourselves” said ILEN Marine School Director Gary MacMahon
