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Buoyant Derry as Maritime Museum Passage Promises to Float all Boats

29th November 2017
An architect's image of the Maritime Museum & Archive Centre in Derry would look like in the Waterside area of the city An architect's image of the Maritime Museum & Archive Centre in Derry would look like in the Waterside area of the city Credit: Photo: DC&SDC Planning Dept.

#MaritimeMuseum - A decision by the Department of Infrastructure (Dfi) to finally approve plans for a Maritime Museum at Ebrington will hasten the completion of a major tourist draw in the heart of Derry, according to local politicians who have hailed the move.

As The Derry Journal writes, DfI (last week) finally approved planning permission for the Maritime Museum, which is expected to open in Spring 2020. It also gave the green light for new vehicular/pedestrian access off Limavady Road via a new signalised junction.

Both applications are part of the wider ongoing regeneration at Ebrington. Local politicians said the progress was welcome and that the museum would ultimately showcase Derry's unrivalled nautical heritage and attract hundreds of thousands of tourists to the city. SDLP Foyle MLA Mark H. Durkan: “I welcome this planning decision as another piece in the Ebrington jigsaw.

On the back of other recent developments and approvals on the site, it is becoming clear that the huge potential of this key site can be realised. "Before I established a Department of Environment North-West Headquarters there a few years ago, there were no jobs and precious little activity in Ebrington.

Local businesses have now set up there and in the future, with careful planning and adequate investment, the place will be awash with activity. "The Maritime Museum itself has been talked about for a long time. It is fitting that we celebrate the rich maritime history of our City in a way that will enhance our ever –improving tourism product.’"

For more on this story, click the newspaper's report here.

 

 

Published in Coastal Notes
Jehan Ashmore

About The Author

Jehan Ashmore

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Jehan Ashmore is a marine correspondent, researcher and photographer, specialising in Irish ports, shipping and the ferry sector serving the UK and directly to mainland Europe. Jehan also occasionally writes a column, 'Maritime' Dalkey for the (Dalkey Community Council Newsletter) in addition to contributing to UK marine periodicals. 

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Coastal Notes Coastal Notes covers a broad spectrum of stories, events and developments in which some can be quirky and local in nature, while other stories are of national importance and are on-going, but whatever they are about, they need to be told.

Stories can be diverse and they can be influential, albeit some are more subtle than others in nature, while other events can be immediately felt. No more so felt, is firstly to those living along the coastal rim and rural isolated communities. Here the impact poses is increased to those directly linked with the sea, where daily lives are made from earning an income ashore and within coastal waters.

The topics in Coastal Notes can also be about the rare finding of sea-life creatures, a historic shipwreck lost to the passage of time and which has yet many a secret to tell. A trawler's net caught hauling more than fish but cannon balls dating to the Napoleonic era.

Also focusing the attention of Coastal Notes, are the maritime museums which are of national importance to maintaining access and knowledge of historical exhibits for future generations.

Equally to keep an eye on the present day, with activities of existing and planned projects in the pipeline from the wind and wave renewables sector and those of the energy exploration industry.

In addition Coastal Notes has many more angles to cover, be it the weekend boat leisure user taking a sedate cruise off a long straight beach on the coast beach and making a friend with a feathered companion along the way.

In complete contrast is to those who harvest the sea, using small boats based in harbours where infrastructure and safety poses an issue, before they set off to ply their trade at the foot of our highest sea cliffs along the rugged wild western seaboard.

It's all there, as Coastal Notes tells the stories that are arguably as varied to the environment from which they came from and indeed which shape people's interaction with the surrounding environment that is the natural world and our relationship with the sea.