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Greencastle Regatta website goes
live in May
17.04.08
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by Simon McGeady, Inishowen Independent
A NEW website is to be launched in May dedicated to
the Greencastle Regatta.
The regatta committee are busy researching the
history of event, which, it’s believed, first took
place 1740, the year after Black Saturday, when the
majority of the Inishowen fishing fleet was lost in
a storm.
The Greencastle Regatta committee recently launched
a campaign urging local people to bring regatta
memorabilia to the Inishowen Maritime Museum. |
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So far the response to
the call for memorabilia has been poor, with only a
few people bringing in old photos and the like to
the maritime museum.
“We would take stuff from Stroove and Moville
Regattas as well as Greencastle. Maybe you have old
photos or perpetual cups. The more we can find out
about the history of the local regattas the better,”
said |
Gemma Havlin, manager
of the Inishowen Maritime Museum.
People are invited to bring their regatta artefacts
into the museum where they will be scanned or
photographed.
“You don’t have to be worried about losing your
pictures, we’ll scan them in and give the original
back to you,” she added.
The new website will be used to promote forthcoming
regattas as well as give people from the area now
living abroad the chance to share in the event.
“We hope to put video footage on the website. We
already have some film of old regattas that we want
to put on the site.”
The regatta committee is trying to find out more
about the origins of the long running Greencastle
Sea festival, which they will also post online.
“Black Saturday happened in 1739 and the year after
that there was a regatta to help benefit the
families of those Fishermen lost in the tragedy.
That could make the Greencastle regatta the oldest
in Europe. At the minute we have records of regattas
going back to the 1890s,” added Mrs Havlin who said
this year’s Greencastle regatta would be a more
family oriented event.
“Yes we want to have good bands, but the regatta
shouldn’t just be about beer and music. It should be
a celebration of the sea and it’s resources and the
diversity of the [fishing] industry.” |
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