Tag Archives: shipwreck

Detailed imaging of a massive steam ship, which sank off the Clare coast 125 years ago, have been revealed as part of the most detailed underwater survey ever undertaken in Ireland. On November 26, 1898, the SS Premier was undertaking the final leg of its voyage from Hamburg in Germany to Limerick when it sank just off Scattery Island. The ship, which was on charter to the Limerick Steamship Company at the time, was carrying a cargo of 600 tonnes of sugar when it went down. The SS Premier sank after it was involved in a collision with the paddle steamer, The Mermaid, between Scattery Island and Kilcredaun Point. The vessel sank within fifteen minutes of the collision and its crew took to the boats and were picked up by a passing steamer. The Mermaid’s bow was badly damaged and was forced to return to Limerick for repairs. This new imagery of the SS Premier has been compiled as part …

IN January 1947, the Okeanos, a Panamanian-owed steamship, made its way from the River Plate in South America (now the area of Argentina and Uruguay) to Limerick, delivering grain to the firm Ranks, whose grain silo was a well known landmark on the docks in the city. Captain Lampraidos and the other crew members were mostly Greek natives. My father, Eamon Ginnane, tracked ships as they came and went along the Shannon Estuary from his farm in Rahona. In mid-January, he spied the Okeanos on its way to Limerick and saw the ship again a few days later, anchored off Carrigaholt Bay, noting the difference in its height out of the water, since its cargo of 5,000 tonnes of grain had been deposited in Limerick City. On the night of January 13, the Okeanos hit the rocks at Kilcredaun Point and sounded her siren. As soon as the siren sounded, the first on the scene were local farmers from the …

A GROUP, Project San Marcus 2014 has been approved a dive, detection and survey licence to explore the  San Marcus, which was shipwrecked off Mutton Island in west Clare, during the arrival of the Spanish Armada to Ireland in 1588. The statutory approval was sanctioned on Wednesday by the Department of Arts, Heritage and the Gaeltacht. They oversee the National Monuments Act, which caters for building or vessels over 100 years old. Project San Marcus 2014 will work with INFORMAR in Galway on the project. The Integrated Mapping For the Sustainable Development of Ireland’s Marine Resource (INFOMAR) programme is a joint venture between the Geological Survey of Ireland and the Marine Institute. John Tracy, from Spanish Point, who is a PHD student at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, said that this weeks issuing of the licence is very significant. “The licencing is the critical thing. Over the past two years I’ve been working with a couple with of government agencies …