Fethard Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Carriage |
| Address | Quay Road, Fethard-on-Sea, County Wexford, Ireland |
| Telephone | 051 397511 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
Fethard Lifeboat Station serves the Hook peninsula of County Wexford from the village of Fethard-on-Sea, between Waterford Harbour and Bannow Bay. The RNLI first stationed a lifeboat here in 1886, but the station is forever marked by the Mexico disaster of February 1914, when nine of its fourteen-man crew were lost trying to reach a wrecked schooner. Closed after the tragedy, Fethard was re-established as an inshore station in 1996 and operates a D-class lifeboat.
In 1884 the RNLI decided to establish a station at Fethard, on the east side of the Hook peninsula, closing the older station at Duncannon. A boathouse was built on Quay Road, and a 34-foot self-righting pulling-and-sailing lifeboat — funded by the bequest of Helen Blake of Sussex, and named after her — arrived in July 1886. For nearly 30 years the Helen Blake served this dangerous coast.
On 20 February 1914 she launched to the Norwegian schooner Mexico, wrecked on South Keeragh Island; swamped by a huge wave and smashed on the rocks, she was destroyed, and nine of her crew drowned. The station, already scheduled to close in favour of a motor lifeboat at Dunmore East, never re-opened in its old form. For over 80 years Fethard had no lifeboat, until — as inshore rescue needs grew — the RNLI re-established the station in 1996, placing a D-class inshore lifeboat in a converted bungalow near the quay.
The current D-class inshore lifeboat is Naomh Dubhan (D-819), named for the patron saint of the Hook.
