Dun Laoghaire Lifeboat Station
| All-Weather Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Inshore Lifeboat | |
| Launch Method | Afloat |
| Address | Dún Laoghaire Harbour, Dún Laoghaire, County Dublin, Ireland |
| Telephone | 01 280 4752 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
Dún Laoghaire Lifeboat Station guards the south side of Dublin Bay from the great harbour once known as Kingstown. A lifeboat was first stationed here in 1817, and the RNLI took over in 1862. One of the most decorated stations in Ireland, it is also remembered for the deepest tragedy in Irish lifeboat history — the Kingstown disaster of Christmas Eve 1895, when all 15 crew of the No.2 lifeboat were lost. It operates a Trent-class and a D-class lifeboat.
From 1803 the Dublin Ballast Board placed lifeboats around Dublin Bay, at Sandycove and then, from 1817, at Old Dunleary. Brave rescues were carried out long before the RNLI took over the Kingstown station in 1862. A second lifeboat station was added in 1890, and it was the No.2 boat that was lost with all 15 crew in the 1895 Palme disaster.
The station’s first motor lifeboat arrived in 1919, and by 1963 the lifeboats had grown too large for a boathouse and were kept on moorings. An inshore lifeboat was added in 1986, housed in the former 1862 No.1 boathouse beside the East Pier. After the 1895 disaster the station continued its service; in 1947 Acting Second Coxswain W.
Kelly received the Thanks on Vellum for saving 45 people from the wrecked motor vessel Bolivar on the Kish Bank, among them Lord Mountevans, who later presented the awards. The Trent-class lifeboat 14-05 Anna Livia, funded by the Dublin Bay Lifeboat Fund and other legacies, arrived on 29 June 1995 and remains the all-weather boat, with the current D-class inshore lifeboat Joval (D-865) on service since 2022. Dún Laoghaire’s crews have been honoured many times across two centuries of service.
