Plassy aground, photographed in 1962 | |
History | |
---|---|
United Kingdom | |
Name | Juliet |
Namesake | Juliet |
Builder | Cook, Welton & Gemmell, Beverley |
Yard number | 669 |
Laid down | 23 May 1940 |
Launched | 2 October 1940 |
Commissioned | 20 Mar 1941 |
Renamed |
|
Fate | converted to cargo vessel, sold 1947 |
History | |
United Kingdom | |
Name | Plassy (or Plassey) |
Namesake | Plassey, County Limerick |
Owner | Limerick Steamship Company |
Operator | Roycroft Ltd |
Port of registry | London |
Acquired | 1951 |
Fate |
|
General characteristics [1] | |
Displacement | 545 tons |
Length | 164.0 ft (50.0 m) |
Beam | 27.8 ft (8.5 m) |
Draught | 11.0 ft (3.4 m) |
Propulsion |
|
Speed | 12.25 knots (22.69 km/h) |
Armament |
|
MV Plassy, or Plassey, was a cargo ship in the Irish Merchant Service, operating during the 1950s. It was built as HMS Juliet, a Shakespearian-class naval trawler of the Royal Navy at the start of the Second World War, and sold into merchant service at the end of the conflict. As Plassy it was wrecked in a storm off Inisheer, and is best known as the wreck seen on the foreshore of 'Craggy Island' in the TV comedy, Father Ted .
Juliet was built by Cook, Welton & Gemmell at Beverley, Yorkshire, at the beginning of World War II. It was ordered on 12 December 1939 and laid down the following May. It was launched on 2 October 1940 and entered service with the Royal Navy on 20 March 1941 as a minesweeper. [2] Juliet served in home waters until November 1942 when it took part in Operation Torch, the Allied landings in French North Africa. [3] Thereafter it worked in the Mediterranean. At the end of the conflict Juliet was no longer required by the Royal Navy and in 1947 it was converted into a cargo vessel and sold into the British Merchant service as Peterjon.
In 1951 it was acquired by the Limerick Steamship Company and renamed Plassy after the Plassey area near Limerick, which was in turn named after Robert Clive (Baron Plassey), who took his title from the 1757 Battle of Plassey, in India. [4] As Plassy (sometimes spelled Plassey) [5] [6] it operated around the coast of Ireland carrying general cargo until her loss in 1960.
On 8 March 1960, while sailing through Galway Bay carrying a cargo of whiskey, stained glass and yarn, it was caught in a severe storm and ran onto Finnis Rock, Inisheer, Aran Islands.
A group of local Islanders, the Inisheer Rocket Crew, [7] rescued the entire crew from the stricken vessel using a breeches buoy; an event captured in a pictorial display at the National Maritime Museum in Dún Laoghaire. [8]
Several weeks later, a second storm washed the ship off the rock and drove it ashore on the island.
The wreck still lies on the shoreline and is a tourist attraction. It is visible in the opening credits of the television series Father Ted . In early January 2014, Storm Christine shifted the wreck's position on the coast for the first time since 1991. [9] [10]
The Aran Islands or The Arans are a group of three islands at the mouth of Galway Bay, off the west coast of Ireland, with a total area around 46 km2 (18 sq mi). They constitute the historic barony of Aran in County Galway.
A training ship is a ship used to train students as sailors. The term is mostly used to describe ships employed by navies to train future officers. Essentially there are two types: those used for training at sea and old hulks used to house classrooms. As with receiving ships or accommodation ships, which were often hulked warships in the 19th Century, when used to bear on their books the shore personnel of a naval station, that were generally replaced by shore facilities commissioned as stone frigates, most "Training Ships" of the British Sea Cadet Corps, by example, are shore facilities.
MV Princess Victoria was one of the earliest roll-on/roll-off ferries. Completed in 1947, she operated from Stranraer, Scotland, to Larne, Northern Ireland, initially by the London, Midland and Scottish Railway (LMS) until 1 January 1948 and thereafter by LMS's successor British Railways. During a severe European windstorm on 31 January 1953, she sank in the North Channel with the loss of 135 lives. This was then the deadliest maritime disaster in United Kingdom waters since World War II. For many years it was believed that 133 people had lost their lives in the disaster. However, research by a local historian, Liam Kelly, identified two other victims—Gordon Wright and Thomas Saunders—who had not been identified as there had been no passenger list at the time.
HMS Victory was a 100-gun first-rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, built to the dimensions of the 1733 proposals of the 1719 Establishment at Portsmouth Dockyard, and launched on 23 February 1737.
Inisheer is the smallest and most easterly of the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay, Ireland. With 343 residents as of the 2022 census, it is second-most populous of the Arans. Caomhán of Inis Oírr is the island's patron saint. There are five small settlements: Baile Thiar, Chapeltown, Castle Village, Baile an Fhormna and Baile an Lorgain.
HMS St George was a 98-gun second rate ship of the line of the Royal Navy, launched on 14 October 1785 at Portsmouth. In 1793 she captured one of the richest prizes ever. She then participated in the Naval Battle of Hyères Islands in 1795 and took part in the Battle of Copenhagen in 1801. She wrecked off Jutland in 1811 with the loss of almost all her crew.
Captain James Newman-Newman (1767–1811) of the British Royal Navy was an officer who served in numerous actions with distinction during the French Revolutionary and Napoleonic Wars before his death in the wreck of his ship of the line HMS Hero, which was lost with two other battleships off the Northern European coast during a storm in December 1811. Over 2,000 sailors lost their lives.
The MV Kerlogue was an Irish ship attacked in World War II that has become the exemplar of neutral Irish ships during the war. The Kerlogue was a very small ship that was attacked by both sides and rescued people from both sides. She was almost sunk by a German mine and was strafed by the No. 307 Polish Night Fighter Squadron of the Royal Air Force. She rescued the Wild Rose of Liverpool and the survivors of the German destroyer Z27 and its escort, the survivors of which, in the latter case, were brought back to Ireland and interned until the end of hostilities.
HMS Prince was a Royal Navy storeship purchased in 1854 from mercantile owners and lost in a storm off Balaklava in November that year during the Crimean War.
HMS Foxglove was an Acacia-class minesweeping sloop of the Royal Navy. She saw service in World War I and World War II.
The Inisheer Rocket Crew were a group of men trained in maritime rescue, on Inisheer, one of the Aran Islands, County Galway off the coast of Ireland.
HMS Coreopsis was a Flower-class corvette, built for the Royal Navy during the Second World War which served in the Battle of the Atlantic. In 1943, she was transferred to the Royal Hellenic Navy as RHNS Kriezis and participated in the 1944 Invasion of Normandy. Shortly before she was scrapped, she took part in the British war film, The Cruel Sea.
The following index is provided as an overview of and topical guide to Wikipedia's articles on recreational dive sites. The level of coverage may vary:
Recreational dive sites are specific places that recreational scuba divers go to enjoy the underwater environment or for training purposes. They include technical diving sites beyond the range generally accepted for recreational diving. In this context all diving done for recreational purposes is included. Professional diving tends to be done where the job is, and with the exception of diver training and leading groups of recreational divers, does not generally occur at specific sites chosen for their easy access, pleasant conditions or interesting features.
The Inisheer, Inis Oírr or Fardurris Point Lighthouse, is an active 19th century lighthouse located on the island of Inisheer, the smallest of the Aran Islands, in County Galway, Ireland. It marks the south-eastern entrance to Galway bay and the port of Galway known as the South Sound, with a red sector of the light marking the Finnis Rock. The Eeragh Lighthouse which marks the North Sound entrance to the bay on the north-western side of the islands, was also constructed at the same time. Inisheer and Eeragh both became operational in 1857.
MV Isle of Inisheer is a RoPax ferry owned by Irish Continental Group and operated by Irish Ferries.