Search Results for 'mid-Atlantic'

The folklore and oral histories of Mayo are peppered with accounts of the dreaded Redcoats – the army of the English invader.

Kinvara’s Dr Karen Weekes is a woman with a mission — for 70 days starting at the end of this year, she will row alone across 3,000 miles of the Atlantic Ocean, a feat that no Irishwoman has previously achieved.

The unfortunate collision of the Indian Empire into the well marked Margaretta Rock in the middle of Galway Bay was a blow to the newly established Galway Line. But by no means was it a knockout. Galway’s vaulting ambition to open a new ‘highway between the old and new worlds’ took on an even more determined energy. The exploitation of steam-power, driving ever bigger ships and faster trains, led to wild speculation as to what could be achieved even from Galway, in the middle of the 19th century.

Students from 4th class at Cregmore national school recently visited the research vessel RV Celtic Explorer as part of their marine-science and art project building up to SeaFest, Ireland’s national maritime festival. The project places art, marine science and technology in the heart of the classroom where the students have been learning about marine life and activity under the sea for the past six months. It involves TULCA in partnership with Marine Institute Explorers Education Programme, artist Louise Manifold, marine scientist Dr. Andy Wheeler, and Cregmore National School.

The American Civil War (1861-1865) offered rich pickings to qualified seamen and shipowners looking for quick profits. The Union blockade of southern ports was beginning to have an effect on Confederate trade. But any ship which steamed safely through the blockade could command high prices for its cargo. On the homeward journey, if you were lucky, large profits could be made on a cargo of cotton which was in big demand in Britain.