Bonfires and celebrations as Volvo Ocean race winners hit Galway docks with gusto
As the crew of Naval Service ship LE Niamh watched the spiralling lights in Galway Bay early yesterday morning, some of the officers were lost for words.
The ship’s search beams were set on the Volvo Ocean Race finish line between a committee boat and a large white buoy west of Mutton island, when the first port masthead light approached.
It was just after 1.35am. Flash lights from cameras and phones lit up the mainsail.
“Try the Morse lamp!” directed Lieut Cdr Paddy Harkin, and within seconds, Spanish/New Zealand entry Camper was caught in the beam.
Only minutes separated the first four in the six-boat fleet, as it swept up the northern shoreline in light south-southeasterly winds.
There to greet them off Barna was a motley flotilla of yachts, ribs and currachs, most of whom gleefully ignored Garda and Naval Service attempts to maintain a 150m-wide exclusion zone.
Bonfires had been lit on Bun Gabhla and Dún Dubhcathair on Inis Mór, and strobes flickered like will o’ the wisps over the harbour.
Camper, final leg leader from Lorient, was just over a mile ahead of Groupama close to the finish, with Kerryman Damian Foxall still about to celebrate his first overall Volvo race win.
US entry Puma Mar Mostro lay close astern in third, finishing at 1.55am local time. A dejected Team Telefónica, which had such high hopes in the early stages of the 39,000 nautical mile passage, was a mere four minutes and 33 seconds behind.
“Watch your ears!” Lieut Cdr Harkin warned his crew above the bridge, as he sounded the ship’s horn over the water. There were loud roars, the rattle and hum of sails being lowered, and Groupama skipper Franck Cammas, who has just completed his first Volvo, punctured the night air with his fist.
Last time a French team entered the Volvo Ocean Race, it was with a boat skippered by the late Eric Tabarly in 1993-94. It has not won the event since 1986.
Two ribs (rigid inflatable boats) from the LE Niamh provided the escort through the lock gates, which had been opened three hours before high tide by harbourmaster Capt Brian Sheridan.
Ian Walker’s Abu Dhabi Ocean Racing and Team Sanya were still several hours south.
Sea Scouts formed a parade of honour for the crews coming ashore, where champagne flowed and a high-decibel Volvo Ocean Race stage compere hadn’t quite gauged the temperature.
“I don’t know what I’m roaring at,” laughed one Roscommon student, there for the night with friends. Alcohol had been banned from the docks area, but glass and cans littered the waterfront as the patience of gardaí, security, Civil Defence and voluntary marshals was put to the test.
US skipper Ken Read, who had been besotted with the port last time on Puma, roused the crowd – “you can’t cheer for shit, Galway!” he said, and Galway got its own back. Those with stamina stayed on for the last two competitors, and were repaid when Abu Dhabi crew member Adil Khalid appeared.
The Galway race finish involves an in-port race on Saturday, but the organisers describe Groupama’s 24-point clear margin as an “unassailable lead”.
Relentless rain dampened spirits yesterday, but by late evening the cloud cleared and President Michael D Higgins took to the stage.
Welcoming the skippers, crews and their families before the Saw Doctors rocked the docks, Mr Higgins spoke of “a connection between Galway and the ocean that is as old as time itself”.
The crew’s journey through four oceans and five continents was one of “challenges, strenuous demands, difficult and worrying moments”.
“And times, I am sure, when crews were tested to the limit and maybe even, for a moment, felt like giving up,” he said.
“However, you did not? You kept on pushing yourselves . . . until that finishing line was in sight.”
Centra Supermarkets withdraws its very ‘irresponsible’ Children’s allowance beer deal offer
Centra Supermarket’s yesterday said sorry for a promotion they ran in four of its outlets which targeted child benefit recipients with offers of low-price alcohol.
The company has instructed the shops involved to withdraw the promotion.
The offer, entitled “Children’s Allowance Day Deals” featured a variety of products on offer including cheese, biscuits and pizza. Two alcohol products were included in the offer: a case of Miller beer was promoted for €15, or 75 cent a bottle, while two cases of Budweiser beer were on offer for €25.
The promotion ran in Courtney’s Centra in Fairview and East Wall, Aherne’s Centra in Kilcoole and Leavy’s Centra in Tullamore.
Centra said the “promotion is not part of a national marketing plan or promotional strategy” and instructed the retailers to immediately withdraw the offer.
“The promotion undermines our genuine commitment to take our social responsibilities regarding alcohol extremely seriously,” the company said.
Minister for Justice Alan Shatter called the campaign “irresponsible and reprehensible. It suggests that some retailers are more concerned with boosting their turnover and profits than selling alcohol responsibly.
“I am disappointed that some licensees appear to be unaware of their responsibilities in this regard.
“I am also shocked at the suggestion that allowances paid by the State for the benefit of children should be targeted in such a cynical manner by the retailers concerned,” Mr Shatter added.
Minister of State Róisín Shortall, who has in the past said she is in favour of introducing a minimum price for alcohol products sold in supermarkets and shops, was also strongly critical of the promotion.
“It is deeply disturbing that a retailer would promote alcohol in this way. Alcohol causes almost 90 deaths every month, is responsible for a quarter of injuries presenting to our emergency departments and is a trigger in one-third of domestic abuse cases,” she said, adding the Department of Health was developing an action plan on alcohol which was to be brought to Government in weeks to come.
Children’s charity Barnardos expressed shock at the promotion, calling it “irresponsible marketing” which “sends out the wrong message to families on what child benefit is designed to do – assist with the costs of raising children”.
Barnardos’ chief executive, Fergus Finlay, said the “promotion is insulting to parents and families all over Ireland who are already struggling to provide for their children and often forced to choose between putting food on the table, buying school books or bringing a sick child to visit the doctor”.
The promotion also drew criticism from Fiona Ryan, chief executive of Alcohol Action Ireland. “Considering one in 11 children in Ireland is living with a parent with problematic alcohol use, and that children’s lives are negatively impacted, then any link between parenting and buying cut-price alcohol is totally irresponsible,” she said.
Ms Ryan drew attention to the fact that the Government was currently examining legislation separating the sale of alcohol and food. She said promotions like this underlined the need for tighter regulation. “If we continue to sell alcohol like a grocery in supermarkets and not treat it as a licensed product, then in one way I’m not surprised a retailer would put alcohol in with groceries.”
Fine Gael Meath East TD Regina Doherty, who is a member of the Joint Committee on Health and Children, also expressed concern at the promotion.
“Child Benefit payments are for children, and to blatantly advertise alcohol like this contravenes moral standards – not alone advertising ones. I think this is a prime example of how self-regulation of the industry is absolutely not working.”
New Giant’s Causeway visitor centre in Northern Ireland is now open again to the public
GIANT’S CAUSEWAY in Northern Ireland’s is without doubt one of the most popular tourist attraction sites in Ireland, was back fully functioning at lunchtime yesterday after the new £18.5 million visitor centre was opened by Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness.
At 1pm yesterday, 12 years after the old centre was destroyed in a fire, the new British National Trust facility on the north Antrim coast was opened to the public and the first stream of the 600,000 visitors who travel to the causeway each year began flowing through its doors.
The first paying customer was Robert McBride, a native of nearby Portrush who emigrated to Melbourne, Australia, in 1970 to take up work as an electrician. Retired now, he came on holidays for the Irish Open at Royal Portrush golf club, taking time yesterday to revisit the causeway.
“It’s great to be back – apart from the cold and rain,” he said. “I think this building is fantastic. I love the way it fits in with the landscape,” he said.
The oldest visitor yesterday was 95-year-old John McKay from the nearby townland of Lisnagunagh who, in 1931, worked as a flagboy helping direct the trams ferrying visitors to and from Portrush, earning two old pennies an hour for a 12-hour day. He found the new centre to be “very elaborate”.
The visitor centre, which apart from three days over Christmas will be open all year, is markedly different from the old amenity as you almost have to be up to the building itself before you actually see it because the facility is so in tune with its rugged surroundings.
Competing against 250 architectural companies, the Dublin firm of Heneghan Peng won the 2005 open competition to design the centre.
Shih-Fu Peng, who founded the practice with Róisín Heneghan in New York in 1999, moving to Dublin two years later, took issue with descriptions of the centre as the “invisible building” saying it “struck a balance between visibility and invisibility”.
Whatever about the architectural niceties with its grass roof and dark basalt columns – quarried in Kilrea, Co Derry, from the same lava flows that formed the causeway – the centre, as described, “is no longer a building and landscape but a building that becomes a landscape”.
The facility incorporates an interpretative centre with explanations of how the causeway’s 40,000 basalt stones were formed, stories about the area’s rich myths, history, geology, flora and fauna, and details of the many walks tourists can take to the stones and along the clifftops.
The Giant’s Causeway remained open since the fire but now the trust and the Northern Ireland Tourist Board expect annual visitor numbers to increase beyond the current 600,000.
On hand yesterday were characters representing Fionn Mac Cumhaill, his wife Oonagh and the Scottish giant Benandonner. Legend has it that Fionn created the causeway to travel to Scotland to fight Benandonner. But he skipped back to Antrim when he saw the size of his foe. Oonagh persuaded Fionn to dress as “Fionn’s baby” and, when Benandonner figured what Fionn’s “Dad” must look like, he fled back to Scotland, ripping up the causeway behind him.
First Minister Mr Robinson, standing close to Deputy First Minister Mr McGuinness reminded Fionn and Benandonner, in the spirit of the new Northern Ireland, that “ancient quarrels were being put to rest”. He said the opening was a “momentous occasion”.
Mr McGuinness said the centre was “an absolutely stunning building” that sent a “profound message” about how Northern Ireland was moving forward.
Three Left Alliance Dublin TDs question constituency only allowance ruling
Three Dublin based TDs from the United Left Alliance who used part of their travel and accommodation allowances for a nationwide campaign against water and household charges have questioned a provisional ruling that they were not entitled to do so.
Yesterday the Houses of the Oireachtas Service said allowances of €1,000 a month paid to Joe Higgins and Clare Daly of the Socialist Party and Joan Collins of People Before Profit should have been used only to cover costs within their Dublin constituencies, and travelling to and from Leinster House.
In a statement the service said it had “never envisaged that the allowance would allow Deputies to travel outside of their constituencies, except for journeys to and from Leinster House”.
However, it said it was seeking legal advice to clarify the position.
All three TDs have confirmed this week that they used part of the allowance to cover expenses for attending protest meetings and rallies throughout the country.
Yesterday Ms Daly said if it was found the allowance was inappropriate she would repay the amount involved.
However, she pointed to the fact that legal advice was now being sought as a demonstration of the uncertainty surrounding the rules for the allowance.
Socialist Party colleague Joe Higgins struck a less accepting stance on the finding, maintaining he was within his rights to use the allowance so that he could attend meetings throughout the country. That went to the heart of what he stood for politically.
Mr Higgins pointed to what he said was the inherent unfairness in a system which gave millions of euro in leaders’ allowances to some parties but gave nothing to his party despite the fact it had two TDs.
Parties which secure less than 2 per cent of the national vote are not entitled to that allowance.
Gardaí appeal for missing Westport Co Mayo woman
Nan Reilly was last seen on Friday morning
Gardaí in Mayo have appealed for help in finding a 56-year-old woman missing since Friday morning.
Nan Reilly went missing from her home in The Elms, Westport. The last contact with her was by telephone in the early hours of 29 June.
She is described as approximately 5’3″ in height, of very slight build, with short brown hair, brown eyes and glasses.
Anyone with information asked to contact Westport Garda Station on 098-50230, the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111 or any Garda Station.
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