An Interesting Visit to Beautiful Ballycotton Pier

Ballycotton Lifeboat

The Mary Stanford

View of the harbour

Nets, nets and more!

Ballycotton is a small seaside village in East Cork, known for it’s lighthouse, it’s cliff walk and the lifeboat station.   We visited a few weeks ago, but didn’t have the proper footwear to do the cliff walk, as it was very muddy from recent storms, so instead we wandered around the pier, and found a few interesting shots, like the nets and the lobster pots, and the lifeboat.

The RNLI (Royal National Lifeboat Institution) Lifeboat Station was first established here in 1858, and over the years has been involved in many rescues, one of the most famous being when the Daunt Rock lightship broke away from her moorings during a storm in 1936.   The seas were so mountainous that spray was flying over the lantern of the lighthouse 196 ft high. The lifeboat, RNLB Mary Stanford (ON 733) was away from the station for 79 hours and at sea for 49 hours; the crew had no food for 25 hours and they only had three hours sleep. The eight crew at the lightship were rescued after the lifeboat went alongside the vessel more than a dozen times. This was one of the most exhausting and gallant services in the history of the RNLI.   

I have written about the Mary Stanford previously here.

A lot of deep sea angling boats leave from this pier also, that is why there were so many nets and lobster pots lying around, either waiting to be taken out to see again, or to be de-tangled, as some of them looked to be in a bit of a mess!

Here is a view of the lighthouse, as seen from the eastern side.