Gone are the days...

...when our hearts were young and gay, back in the nineteen fifties and earlier, when parents could let their children play in safety in and on the Ilen River and Caol Stream in the heart of dear old Skibbereen. Days when our children could ply the waters in converted aircraft tanks imagining themselves to be on the Amazon or Nile with strange creatures around every bend and their imaginations would provide scenarios of pirates and sunken treasure and they could explore all the hidden places from Newbridge to Ballyhilty Bridge and travel beneath the Main Street of Skibbereen to explore the Caol Stream to the faraway country of Castlelands. Days, when kids had hideouts and secret camps and play in safety in areas far from today’s television and computer games and indoor distractions. When many adults had rowing boats, outboard motor craft and a few canoes on the river and when sand-lighters brought cargoes of sand, timber and coal to the various merchants of the town. Their cargoes were landed on the seven quays of Skibbereen, namely: Steam Mill Quay, Burkes Quay, Long Quay, Levis Quay, Nagles Quay, Minihane’s Quay and the Chapel Quay. Most had travelled from Oldcourt where boats of up to 400 tons would discharge their cargo for transfer to the lighters for the onward journey to Skibbereen.

Who is that in the picture above? Click here to view in detail.

But stop this retrospective thinking.

A well-attended public meeting held in the West Cork Hotel in September of 2006, entrusted a new committee formed on the night with the restoration of the facilities on the river and the provision of new and innovative amenities. This committee is called RIPPLE, an acronym for River Ilen Planning Project Liaison Executive. Their sole mission over the next few years is to liase and work with the Town Council, Cork County Council and with local organisations and landowners, to combine, develop and progress constructive ideas on the careful development of the Ilen River, Caol Stream and Marsh. Their ideas range from walkways to quay and slipway restoration to river recreation areas and the reclamation of areas that were once the backbone of our town, to river taxis and pontoons in the heart of the town where visitors from Baltimore and farther afield may moor their craft in safety in the centre of the town after the magnificent journey from Baltimore and beyond and to develop the Marsh as a major amenity area for the town and West Cork. Of prime concern also is the preservation and promotion of natural habitat for the myriad of wildlife that is to be found in and on the river and its environs. The welfare of this wildlife will be given priority in every project undertaken by RIPPLE and provision will be made for our people to see and appreciate the abundance of nature within the boundaries of the town.

The projects undertaken will be described and portrayed and updated on this site over the coming months and years. We ask all of our overseas friends of Skibbereen and past residents to submit their ideas on how they would like to see our river environs develop. Ideas may be submitted to our forum which we will call ROW which is also an acronym for Ripples Of Wisdom. With your help we will see RIPPLE make waves until our town is the envy of the country and our people proud of themselves and their natural heritage, the Ilen and the Caol.

With your help...

With the help of your vision and ideas and hopefully your financial help, we will make your town and river, a place to be proud of once again. Through the PAYPAL facility on this site we would welcome any donation you can afford to make to help this community effort, in Dollars, Pounds, Euros or any other currency, A small regular donation would be even more welcome and could easily be arranged by direct debit from your Bank account to ours, details of which can be found elsewhere on this site. All donations can be made in safety and you are assured that all monies received will be spent exclusively on the projects undertaken by RIPPLE. Because the committee is entirely voluntary, no funding will be spent on administration with the sole exception of properly incurred expenses. We also will be sourcing additional funding from the European Union and Government Departments. We have already been offered financial help from West Cork Leader for which we are very grateful. This website has been part funded by West Cork Leader and would not exist without their kindness and cooperation.

We have engaged the services of Consultant Civil Engineers, Cronin Miller to carry out a feasibility study and report which will incorporate all of the previous studies and enhance the amenity aspect of them and add to them the many visionary developments of our committee to fulfil the needs of a growing and progressive town with a large young population with few amenities available to them. This will be the PEOPLES REPORT and will not be allowed to gather dust in an archive but will be worked on to its completion.

We have been offered the support of the Town Council, Cork County Council and many local organisations including the Tidy Towns Committee, the Business Association and other groups and many, many individuals who love Skibbereen and have faith in its future. The entire business community have already contributed by taking out almost two hundred advertisements in a feature on the Southern Star published on February 22nd 2007. Many who did not wish to place an ad. instead made a contribution to our fund, which was very welcome.

Our project is gaining widespread attention and in the first week of January, our Chairperson and Treasurer were interviewed for a news feature on TG 4 Television. This will be followed in the coming weeks with a feature on Nationwide, the primetime RTE 1 program. If possible we will place a recording of the events on this site as they come to hand.

This committee has changed since our AGM in September 2007. The new committee is as follows –

·          Frank Fahy – Chairman

·          Brendan Leahy T.C. Vice Chairman

·          Kay Quinn – Secretary

·          Tadgh O’ Donovan MCC

·          Brendan McCarthy T.C.

·          Donacha O’ Shea T.C.

·          Ritchie Carthy T.C.

·          Tim Looney

·          Noel O’ Driscoll

·          Liam Hazel

·          Bryan Harris

·          Ina Jones

·          Garry Minihane

·          Paul Keane

·          Adrian Birth

• Jim Kennedy added to committee on 15/04/08

  A photograph of the new committee will be published on this site within the next couple of weeks

We will endeavour over the coming months and years to develop and enhance this website to portray our town to the best of our ability. We look forward to your welcome input by way of the forum and any constructive suggestions you may have in mind. The very fact that you are reading this introduction to the website is an indication that you have an interest in Skibbereen. Please make this the town of your dreams and ours by contributing in word and deed to RIPPLE.

On behalf of RIPPLE and Skibbereen, we extend to you, our welcome to our website and our town and offer our sincere thanks for your support.

Chairman, RIPPLE Skibbereen