JUNE-JULY 2026 COMMITTEE UPDATE

Here's the monthly roundup of what's happening in the club.

So much going on that I (Colin) even forgot a whole event in the last update. While I was focused on enjoying Baltimore wooden boat fest, others were enjoying Passaia. We've had regattas, fun regattas and the Blaskets Row became the Cape Clear row thanks to Met Éireann. Corkumnavigation was also on the table. Upcoming events include the Rebel Raid in West Cork, and the Villefranche trip in September. Any other adventures you want to organise, just speak up! Plenty of great things happening ! 

Additional trailer

The club will be looking at getting another trailer to facilitate trips. A small subcommittee will look at this. 

Duty captains

For Saturday morning duty captains, please give whoever is on the week after you notice of their duty so they have a chance to try to organise a stand in, or organise themselves, and watch the weather for a possible cancellation. Also please warn all members, but particularly day members about the pontoon. See the announcement on the forum regarding the state of the pontoon. 

Thank you

Thanks to Maighread Kelly for great work on our Adult and Child Safeguarding policies. We hope to be circulating this to all members in the near future. Hopefully we can lower our average age in the club by attracting younger talent and then the future of currachs could be in safe(r) hands!

Upcoming events and training

While speaking of safety, we had a good turnout to the "captains" training this month. Don't forget there's the training modules on the website and the safety discussion section of the forum with lots of relevant videos. Also note that the code of safe practices for leisure craft says we should do a capsize drill at least once a year. This will be an M.O.B. (man overboard) drill (rather than capsize) and we'll arrange it for late August for maximum water temperatures. Watch the forum for updates and do your obair bhaile by studying the M.O.B. video on the website. This can be a fun as well as useful event 

Cork Sports Partnership Currach Rowing ‘Taster’ event is coming up on Saturday 15th August to generate interest in the club. This organisation is who we have got grants from in the past and hopefully again in the future so our participation is welcomed. See the thread on the forum 

CLG status

The Committee has met with several of the Trustees and Maighread Kelly and we have (finally) taken the steps to move from a club to the first phase of a CLG. This step was voted on at the 2025 AGM, just to remind everyone. As the process unfolds, there will be more information on this, but in the meantime, thanks to Bill Holohan, Ed O’Leary, and Maighread who are driving this process. 

New boats

We have a lovely new 3 hand racer built by Monty O’Leary in the Maharees. Our two other 3 hand racers and the four hand racers have all been built by the O’Leary family. The Committee will have a name any day now – to keep with the bird theme we have with our 3 hand racers, as the bird we have chosen Geabhróg (Tern) as every winter 100-200 nesting pairs of Arctic Tern overwinter in the Maharees and she is a fast, light little boat. We are in the process of voting on Geabhróg Monty, to honour the builder, or An Geabhróg. Stay tuned!

Hopefully our two new 4 handers are due in September or October from Meitheal Mara.

New site works

We have got permission from the CCC to knock the shed on our new site and are looking at portable but functional alternatives for a replacement building.  

We have also had an Ecologist assess the site and she has made a brilliant plan to keep the flora on the site intact for wildlife, birds, bees and other pollinators while keeping our functionality in mind.

More on both of these over the coming months.

If we have forgotten anything, please let us know, and we apologise in advance! We hope you are having a lovely summer -

Colin and Stacy