Ilen’s Whiskey Plank Ceremony at Hegarty’s Boatyard

by Ilen on 5 Feb 2015 Ilen’s Whiskey Plank Ceremony is being on Monday 16th February at Hegarty’s Boatyard, Old Court, West Cork. Simon Coveney T.D. Minister for Agriculture, Food and The Marine and Minister For Defence, with a little help from his friends, will hammer home the final ‘whiskey plank’ of European larch on the hull of the good ship Ilen.

The whiskey plank is the final crafted plank nailed to the hull of a wooden sailing ship. It marks a significant milestone in the build and is traditionally marked by a celebration.

The Ilen is the last of Ireland’s traditional sailing ships. Built in 1926, it was delivered by Munster men to the Falkland Islands where it served valiantly for seventy years, enduring and enjoying the Roaring Forties, the Furious Fifties, and Screaming Sixties.

Returned now to Ireland and given a new breath of life with powerful ribs of grown Irish oak, and long planks of European larch from our gallant allies in the Bavarian Alps, she pitches impatiently in the trammels of the great Corn Store in Hegarty’s Boatyard, as eager as a young salmon to get to the sea.

Once on the oceans, free of all ties, save for luminous digital threads, she will explore the world on behalf of many, and then, the greatest adventure of all: rediscover and retake Ireland from the sea, in a remake of Leabhar Gabhala Eireann.
From Roaring Water to Inis Glora, from the maelstroms of Mweelrea to the winter waves of Moyle, from the nine waves and more off-shore to the havens and hollow hills of Ireland, from the Kingdom of Niamh to that of Oisin, with the active
participation of the young, virtual and real, representative and direct, the thrilling, rejuvenating, magnificent exuberance of Ireland’s approaches from ocean and sea will be rediscovered and shared.