Search Results for 'Peter Heffernan'

If Galway Bay was covered with a sheet of strong glass, and if the skies reflected off it, like they do off the water on a summer’s day, you can be sure we would be out there all the time, slipping and sliding on it, falling on our arses on it, making up strange glass-bound games to play on this strange playground.

There is just over a month left until 100,000 people flock to Galway to enjoy this year’s SeaFest, Ireland’s national maritime festival — and this week, Marine minister Minister Creed was in town to launch the event.

PwC, Ireland’s largest professional services firm, has announced a new three year headline sponsorship of the ‘Our Ocean WealthSummit’, the largest national gathering of Ireland’s marine and business communities, held annually as part of SeaFest. This year, the Summit will take place in the National University of Ireland, Galway, on June 30.

An international team of scientists from six countries set sail last week on Ireland’s national research vessel, RV Celtic Explorer on a major trans-Atlantic voyage to study the impact of climate change on the ocean. Departing from St. John’s Newfoundland, and due to arrive in Galway on 23 May, the Galway-based Marine Institute-led team of experts are surveying a transect of the Atlantic Ocean last surveyed 20 years ago to investigate carbon dioxide levels in the ocean. The survey is essential to understand and project how carbon dioxide emissions are accumulated in the oceans and the atmosphere, as well as its effects on the acidification of the ocean.

Taoiseach Enda Kenny on Saturday, announced the creation of 20 new jobs and a €6 million investment in the Marine Institute's facility in Newport.  The 20 new positions will be based at the Marine Institute, Newport, where they will be engaged on a number of research projects funded from a secured pot of €6 million in research grants from a number of agencies including Science Foundation Ireland, Interreg, EU H2020/European Research Council, European Maritime and Fisheries Fund (EMFF) and the British Research Council.

Here on board the Kilcullen Voyager I am attempting to be the first Irishman, and indeed Galwayman to circumnavigate our planet solo non-stop. Now I am the middle of the Atlantic between South America and South Africia, this is our second week at sea and we hope to be at the Equator by the weekend.

More than 60,000 visitors came to SeaFest last weekend to enjoy an action-packed programme centred on Galway Harbour.