Qualla: Youghal Lifeboat Station

Youghal Lifeboat Station: Introduction

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Robert Ashby, CC BY-SA 2.0. On 23 February 1840, the new Youghal lifeboat made its first recorded service launch. There was no engine - it was a 26-foot, six-oared rowing boat - and there was no easy way to get it to the wreck. The brigantine Medora had run aground at Ardmore, seven miles up the coast on the way to Swansea. Lieutenant Richard Roe Metherell, Royal Navy, took charge. The lifeboat was transported by hand the entire seven miles. Metherell, six coastguards, and another seaman then rowed out into difficult conditions and pulled all four of the Medora's crew off the wreck. The RNIPLS Gold Medal followed. The Youghal station was just a year old, and it had already proved why coastal Ireland needed it.

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Image: Robert Ashby | CC BY-SA 2.0

Youghal Lifeboat Station: The Wreck That Demanded a Station

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Will McGoldrick, CC BY-SA 3.0. Before the lifeboat, this stretch of coast simply lost ships. On 13 February 1828, the sloop Mermaid was driven ashore at Whiting Bay, County Waterford, in a winter storm. Lieutenant Richard James Morrison of HM Coastguard managed to rescue all five crew - including one boy - by ...

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Image: Will McGoldrick | CC BY-SA 3.0

Youghal Lifeboat Station: Neglected, Then Rescued

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Nicholas Hilliard, Public domain. By 1856, the visiting Inspector of Lifeboats found the Youghal boat in a yard, in what the official report called a neglected state. Maintaining a lifeboat is expensive; maintaining one that almost never gets called out can come to seem pointless. In 1857 the RNLI - successor to ...

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Image: Nicholas Hilliard | Public domain

Youghal Lifeboat Station: The Boat From Leeds

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Will McGoldrick, CC BY-SA 3.0. In 1867 a larger boat arrived, funded by the people of Leeds at a cost of £250. They named it William Beckett of Leeds, after the local RNLI branch president. Before sending it on, Leeds put the boat on display at its own Town Hall, where the mayor formally handed it over to the ...

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Image: Will McGoldrick | CC BY-SA 3.0

Youghal Lifeboat Station: Gordon and Phil

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit The Carlisle Kid, CC BY-SA 2.0. Today the Youghal station operates an inshore Atlantic 85 lifeboat called Gordon and Phil (call sign B-890), on station since 2016. Two new Atlantic 85s were officially named in County Cork that September - one of them here. The boathouse stands on The Mall, on the western bank o...

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Image: The Carlisle Kid | CC BY-SA 2.0

Youghal Lifeboat Station: Why It Still Matters

Sat, 23 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Will McGoldrick, CC BY-SA 3.0. Youghal Harbour has a notoriously shallow sandbar at its mouth, which has kept larger ships out since the 18th century and made the approach treacherous in heavy weather. The Blackwater estuary spits a strong outgoing current. The Celtic Sea behind it can turn rapidly when an Atl...

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Image: Will McGoldrick | CC BY-SA 3.0