Seventeen callouts, 9 within a 4 week in August and up to 32 people rescued; a busy times for the RNLI Volunteer Crew in Skerries. The year started off slowly with very few callouts between January to July, but from mid July to mid September, the pagers were rarely silent. For more, click here
New RNLI Memorial will remember local lifeboat crews’ sacrifice
Seven lifeboat crewmembers from Skerries and Howth lifeboat stations are to be honoured on the RNLI’s first memorial. The memorial sculpture, to be unveiled in Autumn 2009 at the RNLI’s Dorset headquarters, will pay tribute to those who gave their lives while helping to save others. For more, click here
Welcome
to the "Skerries Lifeboat
Web Site".
Please
feel free to contact us if you would like
to help
out in any way, by joining
our crew, becoming a shore helper, making
a donation or helping the
fundraisers, or if you are thinking of
running an event for the Lifeboat and
you need some help or if you just want
to say
hello from wherever you may
be in the world.
There are times to say hello and there are times to say farewell, and so the Lifeboat committee and crew did so on Friday evening, 23rd February. We bade farewell to Martin Lennox who retires after 15 years service and also to Eric Walsh who retires with over 25 years service. For more, click here
Latest RNLI Trailer
Once a year the crew make a special effort to get away from their own station and environment to visit another response unit abroad – they call it ‘team building and to see how it’s done elsewhere’. To read the full article on the Swedish trip, just click here.
New RNLI Memorial will remember local lifeboat crews’ sacrifice
Seven lifeboat crewmembers from Skerries and Howth lifeboat stations are to be honoured on the RNLI’s first memorial. The memorial sculpture, to be unveiled in Autumn 2009 at the RNLI’s Dorset headquarters, will pay tribute to those who gave their lives while helping to save others. For more, click here
There are times to say hello and there are times to say farewell, and so the Lifeboat committee and crew did so on Friday evening, 23rd February. We bade farewell to Martin Lennox who retires after 15 years service and also to Eric Walsh who retires with over 25 years service. On behalf of all involved with the RNLI in Skerries can we say farewell, not goodbye, and thank you for all the years service. It is also an opportune time to say thank you to their wives, Mary and Anna, and families, without whose support they could not have done the work they did over the years. Thank you all very much.
And we must also welcome on board the new Treasurer, Paul McConvey and the new Lifeboats Sea Safety Officer, Thomas Hoey. You are both very welcome. Fancy getting your craft checked out before the season begins? Thomas is the guy you need to talk to. The RNLI HQ can organise for Thomas, or one of his Sea Safety colleagues, to visit you and your craft and talk through the various safety aspects. This is a free service, no cost incurred by the boat owner. The RNLI has a produced a ‘Sea Safety – the complete guide’ and is available from the RNLI HQ in Swords. The booklet comes with an interactive CD-ROM. To book a visit by a Lifeboat Sea Safety Officer, call the free phone number 1800 789589 or call to the station in Skerries and an appointment can be set up.
There was also a surprise in store on the night for Conor Walsh who was awarded a long service medal with over 20 years service. Well done.
The RNLI issued the Irish annual statistics for 2006 on Wednesday, 20th February and they show that RNLI lifeboats in Ireland launched 907 times and rescued 990 people last year, an average of 19 people a week.
The most common type of call was to powered pleasure craft, which at 237 launches represented over a quarter of all call outs followed by 173 responses to fishing vessels in need of assistance.
Of the 43 RNLI lifeboat stations in Ireland, Bangor in Northern Ireland was the busiest overall with 53 launches and 70 people rescued, while Dun Laoghaire was the busiest in the south, launching 47 times and rescuing 43 people. Skerries Station had 32 rescues.
The first rescue launch of 2007 for the Skerries RNLI Lifeboat took place on Saturday evening, 17th February. A motor boat ran into difficulties off Lambay Island and called for assistance. The boat and its crew were towed to safety by the volunteer Lifeboat Crew from Skerries. Like all lifeboat stations, Skerries operates on a 24hour a day, 7 days a week voluntary service, reliant on fund raising to keep the operation running smooth, the lifeboat in 100% working order and the voluntary crew trained – the RNLI motto being ‘Train One, Save Many’.
As reliant on fundraising as RNLI lifeboat stations are, the committee and crew of Skerries station are particularly grateful to those who raise funds on their behalf. None more so than the Irish Sub Aqua club who, this year, published a calendar and sold it amongst its members. All funds raised went directly to the RNLI. We thank them most sincerely, in particular, Orlaith Blake Dillon, whose drive and determination made it such a success. After a snorkel swim by the Sub Aqua club in the cold, cold waters of Rush on Sunday, 18th February a cheque for €2445.50 was presented to Skerries RNLI. We are most appreciative of all their efforts and thank all involved.
As always, the committee and crew at the lifeboat station in Skerries welcome anyone who wishes to visit every Sunday morning from 11am – 1pm. Call in, drop by and have a tour.
Saturday, 21st October 2006 (13.30) - Skerries RNLI Lifeboat was today involved in what, initially, appeared to be a very serious incident.
At 10.51 the Coastguard requested a lifeboat launch. A call to the Emergency Services had advised that a camper van was submerged in the tide off Barnageera, Skerries.
The lifeboat launched and arrived at the scene. As the campervan was submerged at least 3 feet below the surface, the crew were not able to ascertain whether or not there was anyone inside. This message was relayed to Gardai who were on duty on the road above. Garda Divers were called and, assisted by the voluntary lifeboat crew, were taken to the scene. The Garda helicopter hovered on standby.
The Garda Divers quickly identified that there was no one inside and that it was safe for all emergency services to withdraw.
It was a good end to what could have been a very tragic accident and showed the excellent co-operation between the voluntary crew of Skerries RNLI Lifeboat, the Coastguard services and local Gardai. This was the 29th lifeboat call out for the RNLI at Skerries
The Crew and Committee of the RNLI lifeboat station at Skerries welcome you to their website. The year 2005 was a very busy one for the station both in relation to the number of ‘call outs’ or ‘shouts’ but also because we celebrated out 100 years of service and there were a number of events that surrounded this. Take a look at some photos of the year that was! See yourself in any of them? Feel free to contact us if you’d like to get a copy.
As the evenings get brighter and the days get longer, we all start to look forward to the spring and summer. At Skerries RNLI station, the crew are doing much the same and continue to train throughout the year and also continue with ongoing maintenance of the Atlantic 75. The crew train to a very high level on everything from boat maintenance, advanced first aid and sea rescue.
If you notice the Rescue Helicopter hovering over, then it could be the crew practicing with the Air/Sea rescue. Stop and watch – it usually means one of the lifeboat crew has to get into the water and wait to get winched into the helicopter. All part of the training.
We’re also continuing our fundraising for the station. Donations are very much the lifeblood that keeps the RNLI in operation around our shores. In Skerries we are very lucky to have great support from the people of the town and from the townspeople of Rush, Loughshinny, Balbriggan and surrounding areas. We couldn’t do it without you all. Over the coming months we will be endeavouring to raise funds to keep the station alive and active. These events will be publicised both here on the website and also in local newspapers (but a little preview: a Pub Quizz in June and a Charity Golf Classic on September 4th so pencil in the dates to your diary).
At a recent ‘Thank You’ night at the station for those who had done so much work on our behalf in the preceeding year, we thanked Paddy and Marie Monks. Paddy has ‘retired’ from his job of RNLI charity box manager, but there’s no way he gets off that lightly! Paddy will continue to play a big part in the local RNLI as he remains on the committee. Over the last long number of years, Paddy managed the RNLI charity boxes dotted in shops and pubs around the locality. Each box had to be emptied, all the coins counted, receipts given, money bagged and lodged to the bank. This was a very time consuming activity but one we couldn’t do without. Paddy, Marie, a HUGE THANK YOU.
A big hello to baby Finn, baby son to Willie and Jackie and brother for Tadhg. Congratulations also to Simon and Jenny on their engagement.
If you’d like to help raise funds for the RNLI, please don’t hesitate to contact us. We are at Skerries@rnli.org.uk. As always, please feel free to drop into the station – we’re usually open on Sunday mornings from 11 to c. 13.00. See you there!
