Qualla: Castletownbere Lifeboat Station

Castletownbere Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathan Thacker, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 10 October 2018, the trawler Clodagh O lost its engines off Castletownbere and started to drift toward the rocks. The wind was Force 9 on the Beaufort scale - storm strength, gusting hard, the kind of weather where the sea changes from a surface to a shape. Coxswain Dean Hegarty took the Castletownbere lifeboat out anyway, got a line aboard the trawler in conditions that would have argued against any other plan, and towed her back to harbour with all six of her crew alive. For that night's work he became the first Irishman in over a decade to be awarded an RNLI bronze medal.

Image: Jonathan Thacker | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castletownbere Lifeboat Station: A Coast Without Cover

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Jonathan Thacker, CC BY-SA 2.0. The west coast of Ireland faces the open North Atlantic. The fetch of the storms that come in off it is measured in thousands of miles, and the weather that arrives at the headlands has had nothing to break it since Newfoundland. For most of the twentieth century, the Royal Natio...

Image: Jonathan Thacker | CC BY-SA 2.0

Castletownbere Lifeboat Station: The New Building

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nilfanion, CC BY-SA 3.0. For years the crew worked out of poorly-located temporary facilities. Every callout took longer than it should have. A new building and moorings finally came into use on 19 May 2013, sited so that the lifeboat could be launched far faster than before. The current boat is a Severn...

Image: Nilfanion | CC BY-SA 3.0

Castletownbere Lifeboat Station: The Crew

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Cyclejakob, CC BY-SA 3.0. The Castletownbere crew are not paid professionals. Like every RNLI lifeboat crew, they are volunteers - fishermen, marine engineers, mechanics, people who know the local waters because they work them. When the pager goes, they leave whatever they are doing and run for the boat. ...

Image: Cyclejakob | CC BY-SA 3.0

Castletownbere Lifeboat Station: What the Station Is For

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Joebater at English Wikipedia, CC BY-SA 3.0. The RNLI's standard of cover is to reach any vessel in distress within two hours of launch, anywhere in its area of responsibility. The Severn class at Castletownbere has the range and speed to honour that promise across a wide swath of Atlantic. Most callouts are not the bronze-...

Image: Joebater at English Wikipedia | CC BY-SA 3.0