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Despite numerous pleas and appeals, Ireland’s historic little vessel couldn’t, or wouldn’t be saved, or even sunk.
Among earlier suggestions for the ‘preservation’ of Ireland’s fledging transport authority, Coras Iompair Eireann’s supply ferry, MV Naomh Éanna, unceremoniously dumped by the Irish Nautical Trust in the Grand Canal Basin, Dublin, was to sink it as an artificial reef.
How would that project’s costs and benefits have compared to the millions spent by Irish authorities impounding the drug-runner, MV Shingle; i.e. seizing, berthing, maintaining and removal of hazardous materials, followed by a mammoth tow to the Atlantic shores of Mayo?
Hearty congratulations to local enthusiasts, who, despite such a long bureaucratic climb against the odds, they got the job done. The Shingle provided a grand spectacle on September 18, 2024, when she was delivered to, and sunk in Killala Bay. Best wishes for the project’s aims.
Shame on those who cut up for scrap, the similar sized vessel, Naomh Éanna, latterly, home to watersport retail units in Ringsend, had previously served our Atlantic islands and their people for so many years. Or even worse; when the same authorities couldn’t add to the insurance money to build a replacement vessel for the sunken Asguard, Ireland’s beautiful sail training vessel.
It’s ironic, and even more, regretful that, Ireland’s vision for its maritime heritage and future, never a pressing concern for latter day politicians, seems to lie at the bottom of the ocean. |