A day in Dublin Port: Out on the balcony the view is incredible, despite the fog. Beneath us, the river Liffey meets the sea
Pigeon House and Dublin Port as seen from the window of a Dublin Port pilot vessel as it returns to port having delivered a pilot to a cargo vessel. Photograph: Bryan O'Brien
Like the other 11 pilots who work for the port, Newport is a former ship’s captain. He doesn’t miss it. He likes going to his own bed in the evening. But now, in the middle of Dublin Bay in a storm-rocked sea, he’s about to step from the tiny Dodder onto a very large container vessel. He seems very relaxed.
“Easterly that’s the one we don’t like around here,” says Flanagan. “That’s the end of an easterly gale.”“There’s a bit of fresh air for ye lads,” says Flanagan, opening the back door to reveal the lights of the city receding behind us in the darkness. He’s concerned one of us will “feed the seagulls”.
Later, back in port, Newport says: “You have to be careful. You could see the ship was rolling – the way the ladder shortens – you don’t want to be nipped in there . Luckily here we haven’t had a major pilot accident for some years.” There’s a sea of containers. Some 36.7 million tonnes of cargo travels through here annually. There’s also a lot of space newly given over to customs, immigration and the Department of Agriculture thanks to Brexit. There’s a large white tent that was set up as a reception area for Ukrainian refugees. Very occasionally, says Fairley, security people find a stowaway has cut their way out of the back of a trailer with a Stanley knife.
Joye oversees an archive that dates to the origins of the port company as the Ballast Office in 1707. He’s also interviewed hundreds of pensioners for an oral history project. The archives, he says, are “only half the story.” He shows me where the planned Tolka Estuary greenway will run at the edge of the port, the former pumphouse turned performance space and the old Odlums site which they hope to develop into a cultural quarter with artists’ studios and a museum.
“It was proven to be a huge feeding area for birds in the summer and that’s how they lost the case,” says Joye.
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