Dingle Maritime Festival set to be another voyage of discovery

THE Dingle Maritime Weekend, a celebration of the marine world, its people, and its goings on, has built a reputation for providing free talks and events bursting with quality, and a look at the timetable for this year’s event suggests the 2016 edition will be typically fascinating.

Spread across October 29 and 30, the event will once again be based at Dingle Oceanworld aquarium.

It gets underway on the Saturday at 11.30am with a talk entitled ‘Lusitania – Myths and Reality’ by Dr Michael Martin, author of ‘RMS Lusitania – it wasn’t and it didn’t.’

“After Michael’s excellent talk, we’ll have two further fascinating pieces on the Saturday,” co-organiser Kevin Flannery told The Kerryman.

“One will be by Dr Conor Brosnan on shipwrecks of the Dingle coast, before John Draper goes through the history of Valentia Radio.”

Gráinne Ní Shé will be providing an update of INFOMAR underwater mapping from 12pm on Sunday, before Lorcán Ó Cinnéide takes to the microphone, asking if Brexit might provide the road to the Promised Land for fishing in Ireland.

There’ll also be a coastguard medal presentation and demonstration, as well as an open day at Dingle coastguard station over the weekend.

Kevin, who organises the event alongside Brian Farrell, emphasises that the weekends’ focus on providing talks that are ‘topical and interesting’, and therein lies the main ingredient to their success.

He was also keen to remind those interested in attending that funds will be raised over the course of the weekend for ‘LAST – Lost at Sea Tragedies’.

“It’s a charity that does fine work,” Kevin explained. “It has provided financial aid to families who’ve lost loved ones at sea, and they’re worthy of every support they receive.”

Further information on the weekend can be obtained at info@dingle-oceanworld.ie, or by phoning 066 915 2111.