The Future of Spike Island

A well attended public seminar took place in the harbour town of Cobh yesterday (30/08/08) to discuss the future of historic Spike Island in Cork Harbour which has at various times over the past 1,500 years served as a monastic settlement, Viking base, military fortification, convict base, emmigrant centre, famine home and graveyard, naval base and juvenile detention centre.


Organised by Cork County Council and Spike Island Heritage Committee to coincide with Heritage Week 2008, the meeting was addressed by a wide variety of speakers dealing with different aspects of the island's past and proposed future. There was also a photographic exhibition of life on Spike Island over the past century or so.

Local historian, heritage tour operator and chairman of the Spike Island Heritage Commmittee Michael Martin spoke on the history of the island since at least the 6th century; archaeologist Dan Noonan spoke on the initial findings of archaelogical inspection of various sites on the island; marine archaeologist Connie Kelleher described her inspection of various marine wrecks in the area and raised the possibility of the island someday housing a national maritime museum of world standards, tourism consultant Frank Donaldson spoke about another of the Irish Treaty ports, the military emplacements at Lonehort on Bere Island in West Cork; John Hennessy of the Great Island Historical Society spoke about island life on Spike in the 1940s and 1950s, Cobh Tourism chairman Hendrik Verwey dealt with future proposals and possibilities for Spike while Edward Buckley of Great Island Historical Society gave an interesting lecture about Ogham writing (Ireland's ancient Celtic alphabet) and the importance of the Irish language to this country. A number of local politicians and public figures also attended and there were several contributions from the floor (including yours truly).

It was encouraging to see a large attendance at the seminar on a Saturday afternoon in August and shows there is huge interest in local history and heritage and people in Cobh and the harbour area are genuinely interested in the future of such places as Spike Island.

Bits & Pieces

It's been a few weeks since the Old Blog Cabin was updated so I will summarise this posting.

During the week it emerged that the Port of Cork is now looking again at the option of Marino Point near Cobh as the location of the new container terminal for the port. There seemed to be a marked reluctance by the port authority to look at this site when they were initially looking for a location for the container terminal which had outgrown its Tivoli site near Cork city. The former Irish Fertiliser Industries (IFI) site which already has a natural deepwater basin came on the market after IFI was closed down some years ago and could have been bought at the time. To buy it now would cost a lot more. Ringaskiddy is not completely gone as an option but the lack of a rail link may prove to be an insurmountable obstacle. We will watch for further developments with interests.

There are a number of cruise liners coming to Cork Port over the next week or so. Le Diamant is currently at Cork's North Custom House Quay while Century is due in Cobh in the early hours of tomorrow morning to be followed by the enormous Independence of the Seas making her third visit to Cobh on Saturday while Artemis visits the following Friday, 29th August.

On a sad note I would like to pay tribute to my friend Denis O'Connor who died suddenly last Friday. Denis was a docker at the ferry terminal at Ringaskiddy and a leading trade union representative in SIPTU. He was also a member of the Workers' Party and many other organisations. He had a strong interest in all things maritime and was a regular visitor to this blog. May he rest in peace.

New Harbours Bill raises questions

The Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey TD today (5th August 2008) announced a new Harbours Bill that will change the nature of our major port companies, including the Port of Cork, and possibly not for the better.

Up to a decade or so ago the ports were entirely run and owned by the state with boards directly responsible to the Minister. Then they became commercial semi-state, i.e. they became private limited companies with a commercial mandate but still wholly state owned. Many saw this as the first tentative steps towards privatisation. As with other state companies they had been put at arms length from the government and as private companies it would be possible, through further legislation, to decouple them completely and sell them off eventually. Now it seems this privatisation strategy is going a step further with a significant reduction in the number of local authority representatives (in Cork Port company it will go down from five to just one). This will also mean a serious drop in the level of accountability of the harbour boards. It's not quite privatisation yet, but it comes becomes a greater possibility in the medium term.

The new Bill, if passed, would also allow port companies to invest outside their current harbour limits. Another proposal is to extend the harbour limits of a number of port companies to facilitate developments outside existing harbours. Primarily this is to allow Drogheda Port Company in County Louth to develop a new port at Bremore near Balbriggan in north County Dublin. What implications this might have for the Port of Cork vis a vis the ongoing row over the new container terminal remains to be seen.

Obviously one cannot judge a major piece of legislation based only on a Ministerial press release, but I, for one, would have concerns that this is a further step towards privatisation of our ports and if that happens local areas will lose whatever control they have over the development and planning of those ports.

No doubt there are people who will argue that this bill would give the Port of Cork (and the other ports in the Irish Republic) a chance to develop and to invest but there are portends of more negative possibilities. Many people who work in Cork port will remember the Liverpool Dockers Strike of 1995 when the entire workforce of that port was sacked and the port privatised. Liverpool port is now owned by a consortium called the Peel Group which also owns John Lennon Airport, three other airports including Manchester, the Trafford Centre in Manchester and are also involved in wind generation. The company also has involvement in Glasgow port, Clydeport and the Manchester Ship Canal, etc, etc.

There have already been international buyouts of major US ports, could we now see ports like the Port of Cork being owned by multinational companies with no links or loyalty to the region, people, seafarers or port workers? Of course native business interests would also put the bottom line (money) before such considerations. For that reason this blog believes the government should retain ownership of our ports and that local elected representatives should continue to be represented on the port bodies to hold them to account.

The Old Blog Cabin will be looking at this government bill in more detail shortly.

Harbour Pilots at work

Looking out at one of the Cork Harbour Pilots boarding a large ship in the dark last night I decided to write an article about this interesting, and sometimes dangerous job. It's a task that takes place 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and is essential to any modern shipping port. Under maritime regulations and local port rules, every ship over a certain size must take on a pilot when entering port. The pilot is a fully qualified ships' master who has special qualifications on pilotage and an intimate knowledge of the local port - he (or she) knows literally every rock and sandbank in the port, every twist in the river and every possible hazard to local shipping.

The Port of Cork has had pilots for centuries, starting with rowing boats and advancing to the present day with their two powerful pilot launches and sophisticated radar and ship location technology (AIS). Over the years the pilots have guided many famous ship's in and out of Cork Harbour including the ill-fated Titanic, on her infamous maiden voyage in April 1912. She was piloted safely from her moorings by Cobh pilot John Cotter. Alas the pilots also had their own tragedy in 1942 when five seafarers lost their lives when their pilot boat was caught under the propellors of the Irish Poplar. The five men who died were John Higgins, Frank Lloyd, Frank Powell, Patrick Wilshaw and William Duggan. They are commemorated by a monument near Cobh's old town hall. The memorial is in the form of a replica of the nearby Spit Bank lighthouse (see photo).

Without the harbour pilots the port of Cork would come to a standstill, yet in all weather they must board ships of all sizes and guide them safely to and from the port. The boarding of a ship from a pilot launch is a sight to behold, especially in bad weather, there is no funfair ride that could possibly compare as the pilots have to climb a rope ladder up the side of a moving ship while both ship and pilot boat are rocked by heavy seas and rise and fall into deep troughs and large waves. It's certainly not for the fainthearted!



Today the Cork Harbour Pilots are based at the pilot station in Cobh and have two modern pilot launches, the Gleánn Mór and the Sonia (the latter named after champion Cobh athlete Sonia O'Sullivan). In addition to radar they also have access to closed circuit television cameras which cover the entire harbour as far as Cork city quays and AIS (Automated Information System) which all ships must now carry and which gives the exact position, heading and other live information about the ship. I have included some video of the newest launch, the Gleánn Mór working in rough seas. Incidentally the Gleánn Mór is an Interceptor 42 (42ft long) specially designed as a pilot launch and built by Cobh based Safehaven Marine.

Ferry Disappointing

It's now almost two years since the Swansea-Cork Ferry company announced that it could not locate a replacement ship for the mv Superferry II and we have been without a direct ferry link from Cork to the UK ever since. Several attempts have been made to restore the link but all have so far come to nought.

The affect the loss of this vital link has had on local tourism in the South West of Ireland is clear to see. It has also heavily hit the local economy with jobs lost in both tourism and industry as a result. We now approach the end of the 2008 season and we're still waiting for a new ship on the horizon for 2009. If you haven't already done so, please do sign the e-petition on the website www.bringbacktheswanseacorkferry.com via the link on the navigation bar on the left of this page and write to your local politicians, whether in Ireland or the UK.

On a more positive note there was news recently of a move to open a ferry link between Cork and Northern Spain with a Ro-Pax (Freight & Passenger) ship linking Cork with the port of Gijón (pictured) in the province of Asturias which is well connected to the rest of Spain by motorway. So far it's only on paper but the Old Blog Cabin hopes that it will become a reality and not just a pipe-dream which the Swansea-Cork ferry appears to be. We live in hope.