As it gets ready to celebrate its 30th anniversary, the Galway RNLI lifeboat station is hoping to hear from former crew to share their experiences.
The Galway RNLI station began its journey in 1994, when it first announced that an inshore lifeboat would be placed there on a provisional basis.
This came after a number of incidents on Galway Bay, with strong local support and the backing of search and rescue groups expressed at public meetings on the subject.
In October 1995, the first recently enrolled volunteer crew members went to the RNLI Inshore Lifeboat Centre in Cowes on the Isle of Wight for training, and the temporary Atlantic inshore lifeboat arrived in Galway City the following month.
Shane Folan, who was one of the first lifeboat crew volunteers with Galway RNLI and is now a Launch Authority, said, “It’s been 30 years since the start of crew training, which was one of the early steps towards getting the lifeboat service and the lifeboat station off the ground in Galway.”
“So much has changed over the years, and we look forward to marking the achievement of so many volunteers who have been involved in supporting the station and enabling us to provide a search and rescue service here over the past 30 years.”
“We would like to hear from past crew, some of whom we’ve lost touch with or who may have moved away, and also we’d like to put the call out for old photos and memories of volunteering with Galway RNLI from the past 30 years.”
A lot has changed for the Galway lifeboat station in the past three decades, with Shane highlighting what the conditions were like back in late 1995.
“There was no boathouse so the lifeboat was kept at the workplace of Pat Lavelle, one of the founding members of the RNLI in Galway and the first volunteer Lifeboat Operations Manager. From there, the lifeboat was towed on a trailer to the Docks to launch.”
In the coming months the RNLI volunteers hope to mark this 30 year milestone alongside as many former crew as possible.
“We are putting the call out for past crew to make contact by emailing shane_folan@rnli.org.uk. We look forward to catching up, sharing stories of days gone by and taking the time to acknowledge the thousands of volunteer hours dedicated by so many to saving lives at sea.”
