Skerries Lifeboat Station
| Inshore Lifeboat | |
|---|---|
| Launch Method | Carriage |
| Address | Skerries Harbour, Skerries, County Dublin, Ireland |
| Telephone | 01 849 1126 |
Explore two centuries of RNLI lifeboat history, heroic rescues, and the enduring tradition of saving lives at sea.
Skerries Lifeboat Station serves the north County Dublin coast from the harbour of the historic fishing town, about 30 km north of Dublin. A lifeboat first served here in the 19th century, when a Skerries crew won the RNLI Gold Medal for a dramatic 1858 rescue; the station later closed, but was re-established as an inshore station in the 1980s. It operates a fast Atlantic 85 inshore lifeboat.
Skerries first received a lifeboat in 1833, when a boat was transferred from the recently closed Arklow station, though it served only five years before moving on to Rosslare. A Royal National Lifeboat Institution station proper was operating by the late 1850s, its boats launching to wrecks on the dangerous banks and islands between Skerries and Howth. A new boathouse was built in 1903 for the Liverpool-class William Maynard.
When a fast motor lifeboat was placed at Howth in 1930, able to cover a much wider area, Skerries station was closed. As leisure boating grew, the RNLI decided in 1981 to re-establish Skerries as an inshore station; a D-class lifeboat was placed on service, and the station was formally re-opened in May 1983. Faster Atlantic-class lifeboats followed from 1998, and the current Atlantic 85, Louis Simson (B-866), funded by the bequest of Mrs Charlotte Jordon Simson, arrived in February 2013.
