Cork's maritime past comes back with a bang

The City and County of Cork got a sharp reminder of its maritime heritage over the past week with the worst floods in living memory.

The people of Cork are no strangers to flooding, but the floods which began on Thursday 19th November were something different. Cork was not the only place affected. The floods extended over a large area of Ireland and our neighbouring island, but Cork was one of the most badly affected areas in Ireland.

Cork city is built on a marsh, known in Irish as Corcach mór na Mumhan, the Great Marsh of Munster. The city centre is a series of about six islands and lots of smaller ones which have been drained and channelled. The main street of the city, St. Patrick's Street, was once a channel of the River Lee and much of the city centre is barely above high tide mark. Other streets that were previously waterways include the South Mall, Emmet Place and Drawbridge Street. When a combination of heavy rain of the type we had last week conspires with high tides and high winds the city gets flooded. What we got last Thursday could be called "the Perfect Flood". Except for those affected by it, who would call it something different.

Over 400 years ago the English poet Edmund Spenser wrote about the nature of Cork city in his epic poem The Faerie Queen, "The spreading Lee, that like an island fayre, Encloseth Corke with its divided flood".

The picture above shows Washington Street (then known as George's Street) at the height of the great flood of 1853. The same flood partially washed away St. Patrick's Bridge, not long after its predecessor had been washed away completely by another flood. Thankfully that didn't happen in the 2009 floods, although two people perished in Britain, one of them a police officer swept away when a bridge collapsed.

It all goes to show that we cannot take the planet upon which we live and its environment for granted. There is an interrelationship between the environment and those things we build on it. If you divert water from one place it must re-emerge somewhere else. Global warming is a reality and it is a fact that some of the wettest (as well as some of the warmest) years this century have taken place within the last two decades.

There is no doubt that more and more money is going to have to be spent on flood protection over the next few years. In some countries it is far more severe with places such as Bangladesh in dire trouble and large scale moving of people and cities may have to take place (except the developing world is turning a blind eye).
In places like Cork we are likely to see even more floods and other unusual weather phenomena. We seriously need to get prepared for them.

Ships of the Irish Marine Institute

The r.v. Celtic Voyager (rv stands for Research Vessel) has been around Cork Harbour and the south coast for the past few weeks as part of its research work for the Galway based Marine Institute.

The Celtic Voyager is the smaller of two research vessels owned and operated by the Marine Institute. These ships are involved in research and investigation into all aspects of the sea from marine life, fish stocks and the sea bed itself (e.g. seismic activity). As well as their work with the Marine Institute the vessels also work in conjunction with other vessels as part of an international research team.

The Celtic Voyager is 31.4 metres in length and 9 metres in breadth. The ship has three laboratories on board - a wet laboratory, a dry laboratory and a chemical laboratory. It is fitted with high-tech scientific equipment and can accommodate 6-8 scientists with a maximum endurance of 14 days.

The Celtic Explorer is a much larger vessel at 65.5 metres in length. It can accommodate 35 personnel including its team of 19 - 21 scientists. A special feature of this ship is that it is extremely quiet running and described as being "acoustically silent" to minimise fish avoidance (important when you're trying to study those fish).

You will find much more information on the Celtic Voyager, the Celtic Explorer and the work of the Marine Institute on their website www.marine.ie

Grimaldi Line - Regular callers to Cork Harbour

This is the first of a series in which ships which are regular visitors to Cork Harbour will be highlighted to give the reader an idea of the trade which is taking place in our port.

The first to be highlighted is the Grimaldi Line which has several ships which regularly ply their way between Cork Harbour and the European mainland carrying cars, vans and trucks.

The Grimaldi Line is a large shipping company based in Naples, Italy and operates various types of shipping services including freight and passengers. They have been in the roll-on roll-off (RoRo) business for more than fifty years. The ships which visit Cork and dock at the Ringaskiddy RoRo terminal are of the Grande Ellade class which include the Grande Europa, Grande Ellade, Grande Mediterraneo, Grande Scandinavia and Grande Bretagna (photo shows the Grande Scandinavia berthed at Ringaskiddy). They are each 180 meters long and can carry up to 2,500 cars. Top speed is 20 knots and they have a gross metric tonnage of 51,174. Their Cork agents are Ocean & General Ltd. Grimaldi have had their direct link with Cork since 1998.
As I write the Grande Mediterrraneo is on her way to Cork having left the Portuguese port of Setubal before which she came through the Mediterranean from Pireaus in Greece.

Grimaldi Ferries operates throughout the Meditteranean and Adriatic serving Italy, Greece, Malta, Spain and Tunisia.

No blogs at the Cabin, until now

Hardy visitors to the Old Blog Cabin may be forgiven for thinking I'd given up on the blog given it's two whole months since my last post was uploaded and there have been precious few updates of the site in the last five or six months. Well the blog has been on the rocks but not quite sunk and I've finally managed to put aside a few minutes to post an item here.

As always there's been a fair lot of activity around Cork Harbour in the interim, not least being the arrival finally of the ferry Julia which will go into service on the Cork-Swansea route next Spring, after it gets a refit. This is all thanks to the dedicated work put in by a group of people who just wouldn't take no for an answer after the scrapping of the route over 2 years ago by the previous operator Swansea Cork Ferries Ltd. Now we have the Fastnet Line and the Julia which is a fine ship which has been admired by thousands of people as she remains berthed at Horgan's Quay in Cork city. You can get more information about the Julia and the ferry, including booking and prices at the new Fastnet Line website at www.fastnetline.com


There will be another welcome visitor to Cobh cruise liner terminal next Wednesday (21/10/09) in the form of the Queen Mary 2 which is due to arrive in Cobh around 10.15am. Unfortunately this will only be a short visit but I'm sure that despite the time of day on midweek there will be large crowds in Cobh to view what is arguably the world's most prestigious cruise ship.

I'm glad to report that AIS coverage for Cork Harbour is now available online free of charge in real time on the site www.marinetraffic.com. AIS (Automatic Information Service) is now compulsory on all ships. It uses a radio signal to constantly transmit information about a ship's location, speed and direction as a safety measure. In most cases it also carries data on a ship's port of destination, tracking and on the dimensions of the ship itself. While this is a safety requirement to help avoid collisions, it is also a great tool for shorewatchers who can now find out about ship movements in their own area and indeed worldwide from their computer desktop. It can also be embedded into your blog or website and I will be doing this shortly on the Old Blog Cabin. You can now check on ship movements whether that ship is in Cork or Copenahen, Youghal or Yokohama (as long as the ship is in range of an AIS receiver attached to the Marine Traffic website.

Back again

In my last post six weeks ago or more I apologised for my failure to update the blog for some time. Unfortunately it happened again and I have had less and less time available (and perhaps a lack of inspiration) to keep it going.

Quite a lot has happened in the meantime including the government's decision to transfer ownership of Spike Island to Cork County Council, paving the way for the historic fortifications and jail into a major tourist attraction. Unfortunately it happens at a time when the Irish economy is in very serious trouble so a question mark hangs over the project in terms of funding and is likely to remain there for some time.

The hosting of the Tall Ships Race 2009 by Belfast, not long after a highly successful hosting by our neighbouring port of Waterford once again highlights Cork's failure to attract this prestigious event back to Cork where it made its only visit almost 20 years ago in 1991.

New electricity pylons with overhanging wires and a proposal for a new bridge near the Marina in Cork mean that the city is not in a position to host the largest of the ships - but the question I would ask is Why doesn't Cobh or a combination of Cobh and other Lower Harbour locations make a bid for the race to come here sometime in the next few years? The larger ships could be accommodated at the Deepwater Quay in Cobh with the smaller ones going to Crosshaven, Monkstown and Passage West.

Finally for now I see that the Port of Cork company has finally got its own You Tube account with promotional and port related videos. Here is one:-