Museum will be closed tomorrow 24/7/2022 due to unforeseen circumstances, sorry for any inconvenience caused. We will be open again on Tuesday 26/7/2022.
Ireland’s latest sail training vessel has anchored off Greencastle, on her way to Derry for the Foyle Maritime Festival.
She was purchased, in Sweden, by the charity, Atlantic Youth Trust, chaired by Round the World sailor and former Director of Coiste an Asgard, Enda O’Coineen.
The Atlantic Youth Trust was formed to connect Irish young people with the ocean and adventure while developing sustainability and supporting and protecting the environment.
It was formed by private individuals and organisations throughout the island of Ireland to offer youths an introduction to life at sea.
As well as being a sail training vessel, she will have a key role in areas of research, innovation, tourism promotion and providing a support outlet for vulnerable young people.
Mr O’Coineen, and the charity have been campaigning for years to acquire a replacement for the State’s last training ship, “Asgard II” , which sank in the Bay of Biscay on 11 September 2008.
The government of the day would not support salvaging the vessel and, instead, claimed the €3.8 million insurance money.
Thanks to the charity’s lobbying, €950, 000 in annual funding was secured from the National Lottery Fund. The charity committed to raising €2.5 million, in private sponsorship, to purchase the new vessel, “The Lady Ellen”, owned by Tarbet Shipping and operated out of Skarhamn, Sweden.
She is a 164-foot, Tradewind Schooner, built by Kockums Submarine Yard, In Karlskrona, Sweden, and launched 10th August 1980, for the luxury yacht charter market.
Although built of steel, she is a replica of the timber merchant schooner, “Ellen”, originally built in Denmark in 1909, to a design by Lars-Erik Johansson.
She will be upgraded to modern safety standards but will have her luxury passenger accommodation replaced by a simpler layout, better suited to a sail training role.
She will be rigged as a topsail schooner, with a 30-metre mainmast, carrying 13 sails setting 800 square metres.
She is powered by a 550hp Scania diesel engine, a 250hp Hundested bow-thruster, 2 x 46kw and 1 x 29kw generators.
The ship will be tied up in Derry for the Foyle Maritime Festival.
After that she will go to drydock for renovations and surveys before being registered in Ireland and renamed “Grace O’Malley”.
Picture and video of the Grace O’Malley courtesy of Aerial Vision NI https://www.facebook.com/aerialvisionni
The three Virtual Reality experiences have been created as part of the EU funded TIDE project, and include ‘The Storm, The Sea – The Saldanha’ at Fanad Lighthouse, the ‘Wrath of the Atlantic, Wrecks of the Armada’ at Inishowen Maritime Museum & Planetarium and the ‘Beware! Convoy Below World War 1’ at Fort Dunree.
The TIDE Project is funded by both the Interreg Atlantic Area Programme and Donegal County Council and is being led by Ernact. Other project partners are from Northern Ireland, UK, France, Spain and Portugal. The main focus of the TIDE Project is to promote a common maritime theme among all the projects partners while at the same time adding a new dimension to both the tourism and cultural heritage in the Atlantic region using the latest technology and to enrich the visitor experiences.
The TIDE project focuses mainly on the Napoleonic, Spanish Armada, World Wars & Atlantic Migration eras.
The public are invited to visit Fanad Lighthouse, Fort Dunree and the Inishowen Maritime Museum to enjoy these virtual reality experiences.
To facilitate the official launch of the new Virtual Reality experiences arriving at the museum, we will be closed from 1pm on Wednesday 13th July. We apologise for any inconvenience caused to our visitors, however our normal summer opening times will resume on Thursday 14th – with our new VR experiences available to view. 
Coming soon! New VR experiences will be launched in Donegal! #lovedonegal
The experiences marry Maritime History with the latest technology in the form of Virtual Reality! #keepdiscoveringdonegal
Here at the Inishowen Maritime Museum we will have two of these VR experiences – ‘Wrath of the Atlantic, Wrecks of the Armada’ – dating back to the 16th Century & the Spanish Armada era, the experience focuses on La Girona and La Trinidad Valencera & their final journeys; https://tide-atlantic.eu/NewsDetail?MediaNewsId=1363
‘Beware! Convoy Below’ – a shared TIDE International Partner experience with Derry City & Strabane Co Co, Devon Co Co & Clarte in France. The experience dates back to the early 20th century & World War 1 era where the ships left Buncrana, headed for Rathmullen pier, attached the Kite Balloons onto the ship and at over 1,000 feet kept an eye for U-boats & mines; https://tide-atlantic.eu/NewsDetail?MediaNewsId=1367
Stay tuned!
