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[Neil]

Got back from my short break with the kids to my spiritual home of Ballycotton in Co. Cork where I met with my dream and inspiration into building model lifeboats, and will post some photos and chat later today......but just as an inspiration to all, who support the RNLI and those who have yet to..........the pics below are what it's all about............


the only gold medal ever given to an RNLI lifeboat for it's service to those in peril on the sea.

[slinger]

Nice to see you back Neil look forward to your photos
Graham

[Neil]

finally reached a lifetime ambition , and it has been a lifetime in coming as I first heard of the daring does of the crew of ballycotton lifeboat when as a youngster at school in 1959, we were taught about the RNLI which played a big part in the history of Fleetwood and still does.
It was at that age that I decided that I wanted to go to "that place" not knowing at the time where on earth it was.
Anyway, last Sunday I drove into the tiny village on a headland in County Cork for the first time, and what a site I saw......Just a beautiful setting and a far cry from that very wild night in February 1936 when waves were crashing over the lantern tower of the Light house on the outer Island just at the approach to the Harbour at Ballycotton

[McGherkin]

Some wonderful pictures there. Good job!

Heroes, every one of them. Proud to support, hopefully one day to serve.

[cabman]

Your post has brought back some pleasant memories for me a Neil. My wife and I were touring Ireland about 15yrs ago and had visited the superb museum in Cobh which features Lusitania, Titanic and famine emigration. I must admit it brought a few tears to my eyes. We ended up staying the night at Ballycotton in a pub/B&B just above the harbour. We were made most welcome but were attended to by an elderly Irish-American lady who looked and sounded like Bet Crawford. We were given the freedom of the house and in a lounge above the pub was a coffee table scattered with pictures of her with JFK. She told us she'd just come over from The States to help out while they were busy but when we were asked to sign the visitors book, the last entry was in the 60's. Breakfast was served with a silver service and other high class features. All very strange for a little pub. It was a lovely little village akin to many Cornish fishing villages but I've no idea who the lady was. It was like being in a Hitchcock film. Sorry that it's nothing to do with lifeboats but brought back happy memories for me.

[Neil]

hard to believe from that last photo just how stormy nature can make a tempest out of a sea, and what those guys went through that night.
anyway the next visit to the station came on Tuesday afternoon when Colm Sliney, the grandson of Patrick Sliney, the coxs'n in charge of the RNLB Mary Stanford on that incredible night, showed us around the lifeboat station.
my daughters went with the female mechanic (who sounded and spoke just like Mrs. Brown if you know what I mean, lol) whilst I was shown first, the gold medal that the boat herself won for the 1936 rescue ( and the only boat ever to win a gold medal in her own rights) and then the replica medals that Patrick Sliney won in his career, the gold for the rescue, a silver and a bronze for services during the war years, and on to his (Colm's) house to have a look at the service vellums that Colm, his father William and Grandfather Patrick had been awarded for their service to the RNLI and those lives that they had helped to save in their careers......a total of over 850 lives saved.
Colm was indeed one of the most humble men I have ever had the honour and fortune to have met, and I am not often speechless but this wonderful moment which I will never forget for the rest of my life, left me with a lump in my throat, a tear in my eye, and a realisation of my own beliefs that these guys, don't do this voluntary job for praise, self gratifying egotistical thoughts, honour, money or any other reasons what so ever........they do it because they want to help their fellow humans...........and it was this realisation that I had known all my life, but never quite come to grasp, until that moment............and to have to ask Colm to stand in front of his and his fore father's service vellums, and see his embarrassed face, knowing that I thought of him as a hero, said it all.

[Neil]

Your post has brought back some pleasant memories for me a Neil. My wife and I were touring Ireland about 15yrs ago and had visited the superb museum in Cobh which features Lusitania, Titanic and famine emigration. I must admit it brought a few tears to my eyes. We ended up staying the night at Ballycotton in a pub/B&B just above the harbour. We were made most welcome but were attended to by an elderly Irish-American lady who looked and sounded like Bet Crawford. We were given the freedom of the house and in a lounge above the pub was a coffee table scattered with pictures of her with JFK. She told us she'd just come over from The States to help out while they were busy but when we were asked to sign the visitors book, the last entry was in the 60's. Breakfast was served with a silver service and other high class features. All very strange for a little pub. It was a lovely little village akin to many Cornish fishing villages but I've no idea who the lady was. It was like being in a Hitchcock film. Sorry that it's nothing to do with lifeboats but brought back happy memories for me.

amazing recollections cabman........the pub is still at the heart of the village, but don't think the lady is there........however her photos are now all in frames and on the pub walls, lol..........And I hope you do make it McGherkin.a truly incredible cause.

[baloo]

I don't know where my fascination of lifeboats come from. I have always been to lifeboat stations and brought something when ever I have been on the coast. Your photos are excellent and I am determined to visit Ireland. I also like to visit old book shops to see if they have any "old" lifeboat books,  but most book shops don't have any at all(shame really)still must go, take the wife to work then come home and carry on with my Watson lifeboat(I prefer the older ones)   

[Footski]

Brilliant Neil.
My gook lady and I are visiting friends in Wexford later this year. Baldly cotton has just been put on my list of places to go.

[Neil]

It was then onto the boat herself.
Lifted out of a watery fresh water grave at Dublin Grand Canal basin, she was transported to a transport yard in a town called Midleton, just down the road from Ballycotton by low loader, and there she is now sat on chocks.
Work has already started in stripping and scraping the millions of fresh water mussels from her hull.

[Neil]

and finally it was time to give the old girl a hug( well tree lovers can do it.............so! so can I with a lifeboat I have worshiped almost all my life)......and then introduce little to large..........
and after that, it was back to reality and basically home to the shores of Holyhead a couple of days later.

[Neil]

Sorry, forgot a final sequence of shots........this plinth overlooking the islands that she covered and the bay and sea that she served, will be her final resting place for her to gaze out over that vista.

[Rottweiler]

Thanks for this article and photos Neil.Let us all hope that a restoration will happen,and she can indeed be placed upon her plinth within our time on this Planet.
Mick F

[Stavros]

Well Neil I am HURT as you passed within 2 miles from my house nad DIDNT call in for a cuppa 
 
 
Dave

[Neil]

What!!! at half past midnight incoming and 01.30 outgoing, matey......I'd have been as welcome as a **** in a swimming pool, 

[Pioneer]

Hi Neil

Welcome back. You've had a fantastic trip with weather to match by the looks of it. Thanks for posting details for us all to see.

Regards

Andrew

[Neil]

here ya all go guys.........

mary Stanford is back home.    http://youtu.be/DVUcqyhHm8Q

[vnkiwi]

Good to see, but is she to be covered or enclosed, as out in the weather she won't last long.
Would be a pity to see all the efforts wasted
 

[Neil]

don't know the answer to that matey.......Would presume that it will be initially covered with tarps.

neil.

[vnkiwi]

Neil,
I do hope she will be suitably protected once she is restored, as she deserves.
She'd last a long time then, because as you know, wooden boats require a lot of maintenance.
I wish them well, these projects can be hard work, and deserve to be given the best chances of long term survival
cheers
 

[TheLongBuild]

Would it not have been better to restore her first, Before putting her on the final resting place ?.

[Neil]

I would have thought so, but the problem was that the boat had to be moved quickly in the end after a ship that she was moored against in the grand basin at Dublin was moved and it was feared that the lifeboat would be taken out by the authorities and broken up. the group that rescued her are local to Ballycotton but she was initially taken to the transport yard of the company who shipped her down from Dublin FOC.........but it is a little way from Ballycotton to the yard...........so I think that the group thought that if she were in situ in the village where she were based, they would get a lot more voluntary help from locals who could pop along and do a bit here and there along side the dedicated group, than where she lay about 10 miles away.........I can see their point........and the wind and rain up on the headland will certainly keep the timbers "moist", lol

[dpbarry]

Brilliant Neil.
My gook lady and I are visiting friends in Wexford later this year. Baldly cotton has just been put on my list of places to go.

Hi Footski..


If in Wexford, two places to visit are Kilmore Quay and Dunmore East (Dunmore is actually in Co Waterford but a short hop across the ferry at Passage East.


Just back from holiday near Hook Head. Can see both places from the Hook Lighthouse. Oldest in Europe. You will enjoy it.


Declan

[eddiesolo]

Beautiful pictures and history Neil, thank you for posting these.


Si:)