Southern stars sail away with prestigious awards

By Daniel O’Neill

Several Corkonians and Leeside institutions won big at the recent Irish Sailing Awards.

Winners include UCC for Irish Sailing University of the Year, Donal Hickey for the Sailability with Equality, Diversity and Inclusion (EDI) award and Peter Crowley of the Royal Cork Yacht Club winning the Irish Sailing President’s award. The awards took place at Windmill Lane in Dublin on 28 February.

UCC was named Irish Sailing University of the Year after coming victorious in the Student Yachting Nationals and winning fifth place at the University World Championships in Italy. Micheal O’Suilleabhain, Jack O’Sullivan, Mia Murphy, Sally O’Flynn, Michael Carroll and Lellie Collins all served as members of the team.

Hailing from Kinsale, Donal Hickey took home the EDI Award for his efforts to support people with disabilities through sailing. Donal has received several other awards for his work including Volunteer of the Year for West Cork at the Cork Volunteer Awards in 2023.

Peter Crowley of Royal Cork Yacht Club won the Irish Sailing President’s award for his contribution to sailing as an International Race Officer. Peter, a former Irish Sailing president was presented the award by Irish Sailing President John Twomey.

Some other notable wins from the awards include the ‘Dubarry Team of the Year’ award going to Olympians Robert Dickson and Sean Waddilove, the ‘Woman on the Water’ award going to the National Yacht Club’s Nicole Hemeryck and the ‘Sailor of the Year’ award going to Tom Dolan. CEO of Irish Sailing Tim Bourke said: “There is almost too much talent to choose from, Tom Dolan’s epic achievements in single handed sailing and Rob and Sean’s performance in Marseille in any given year would be enough for accolades, but to have both, as well as two other Olympians in Finn Lynch and Eve McMahon is just incredible.”

He added: “When you couple that with the amazing achievements of Youth Sailor Sienna Wright and the accomplishments of the likes of Woman on the Water Nicole Hemeryck, it gives us a lot to be hopeful about for the future of Irish sailing.”