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The oldest video footage of yacht and dinghy sailing in Ireland

by Magnus Smith 16 Mar 18:00 GMT
Royal Cork Yacht Club greening for St Patrick's Day © Royal Cork Yacht Club

As we prepare for St Patrick's Day tomorrow, let us direct our exploration of the video archive towards anything Irish. We have discovered several videos from Ireland, starting as early as the 1920s!

Here is the oldest video: Dun Laoghaire Regatta 1926 - featuring sailing, rowing and swimming.

Jumping ahead we now have the Howth YC Regatta and Lambay Races - 1942

Sadly this video is silent (or rather, has a humming noise) but shows good footage from the Skerries Regatta in 1950

If you want to see more from Skerries there is a three-part set of longer videos that cover the harbour area:

  • Part 1 - skip to 7m10s for sailing
  • Part 2 - skip to 2m03s for sailing
  • Part 3 - skip to 1m14s for sailing

Next up, you need to ignore the Cowes Week footage at the start of this video, and skip to 0m23s, as it also covers the 505 racing in Cork - 1957 (the Worlds were in France on this year, and there was no Europeans until 1966, so was this a Nationals?)

Update: we later found Clontarf Easter Week Regatta (Dublin) 1960 - Firefly, Int14, Cadet, 505

We now go straight to: 1970 Fireball Worlds at Fenit, Tralee Bay

We end with another Cork video: 505 World Championships 1982

What of the rest?

Do you know the location of any other Irish sailing videos? We would love to share these with sailors worldwide. You can submit video links for immediate review.

Keep watching with:

The Dun Laoghaire waterfront - photo © Dominique Leroux / Route des Princes
The Dun Laoghaire waterfront - photo © Dominique Leroux / Route des Princes

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