An Cosantóir

37 LÉ ROISÍN REFIT Ship's Characteristics Weaponary Aboard Type Draught Speed Range Crew Commissioned Main Armament Secondary Armament Small Arms Main Engines Length Beam Long Offshore Patrol Vessel 3.8m 23 knots 6000 Nautical Miles @ 15 knots 44 (6 Officers) 18 September 2001 2 X Twin 16 cly V26 Wartsila 26 medium speed Diesels. 5000 KW at 1,000 RPM 2 Shafts 76mm OTO Melara Canon Radamec Fire Control System Various small arms ranging from: 9mm Pistol to 7.62mm General Purpose Machine Gun 2 X 20mm Rheinmetall Rh202 Canon 2 X 12.7mm Heavy Machine Gun 78.84m 14m period as well. It is running up every bit of equipment, testing everything, testing their limits; alongside seeing what the issues are and dealing with the OEMs and service engineers on that. Basically, it is ticking all the boxes to ensure that the ship is safe to operate, prior to going out to sea." Talking about the challenges they met, Gary said the pandemic was the major one. "It would probably have been completed sooner, but we ended up having a delay due to guys trying to get work done where there is social distancing involved; trying to get service engineers in from Italy or even the UK was difficult. There were quarantine issues, there were red lists, we've been through all that. We got over the Brexit side of things with delays in parts coming in, but we lost time due to the delays as a result of the pandemic." Then, of course, when the work is done, the ship has to go back to sea: "One thing I noticed, when we were ready to go on sea trials, was the pride in the Captain's face – Cmdr Grace Fanning – it was a very proud moment for her, she has been with the ship since it began its downtime. For her to bring it out to the harbour then was a huge moment for her, for ourselves in the Project Management office, as well as for the crew. They then began the sea acceptance trails, which is putting all the machinery through its paces; pushing them to their limits, just to operate everything that has been changed and upgraded." The majority of checks, he said, were completed during the HATS – the Harbour Acceptance Trials – when everything was run up. "The Sea Acceptance Trials were just about a week long; just to run everything up in the environment at sea and make sure everything held together in a way to take the sea. So they completed that within a week which was good. HATS was about four or five weeks long, that was the real important one." But before LÉ Roisin heads out to sea on formal duty, another box-ticking exercise had to be carried out. The ship came back to dry dock for a week. "That is just basically to confirm everything underneath has survived the sea trails. Then she should be ready to go fully operational. So we are at the close- out phase of this project and opening up for the next one," said Gary. Next in line to undergo work as part of the Naval Service's mid-life extension programme is the LÉ Niamh. She came into service in 2001 and, as a result, meets the criteria for the life extension programme. "So, we are beginning the initiation of that now as well. A lot of lessons have been learned so we can take them over to it. Myself and my Project Management team are carrying on this one. It will be a new crew to face their challenges over in dry dock," he said. Of course, presiding over two such vital, multi-million euro projects for the Irish Naval Service is a daunting task. But Gary Jordon holds no fears: "It's been great experience, just learning the Project Management processes. I have actually begun undertaking a Master's in Project Programme Management since last September in the University of Limerick. So it's all kind of linked together, it suits being able to apply your theory to practise live with the programme." *You can listen to the full Podcast interview here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7NmMniq-bbE AN COSANTOIR – LE ROISIN REFIT - PANEL LÉ RÓISÍN P51 LÉ ROISÍN (the first of the Roisín class of vessel) was built in Appledore Shipyards in the UK for the Naval Service. Naval Service engineers stood by her construction at all stages. She was built to a design that optimises her patrol performance in Irish waters (which are the roughest in the world), all year round. For that reason a greater length overall (78.8m) was chosen, giving her a long sleek appearance and allowing the opportunity to improve the conditions onboard for her crew. Onboard facilities include more private accommodation, a gymnasium and changing /storage areas for boarding teams. Ship's Name Róisín or Róisín Dúbh, though now usually portrayed as an allegory for Ireland, was probably one of the daughters of Red Hugh O'Neill, Earl of Tyrone in the late 16th Century. Like many young noble women of the time, she was married several times while quite young. One marriage was probably to Hugh O'Donnel, Earl of Tyconnell and another to O'Cahain of Innishowen. Such Dynastic marriages were not unusual and under Irish law, marriage was a purely secular matter and the church had no real involvement in it. The poem Róisín Dúbh is one of those poems of which almost everyone has heard but very few actually read. It is almost certainly a love poem to a real woman, not to an abstraction of idealised womanhood or an allegory of the country. Such poems were not unusual, particularly in the 18th and 19th centuries, but the language of 'Róisín Dúbh' is quite different. The other poems tend to express admiration for the beauty and courage of the lady being eulogised but they never express the sense of lust that comes across in the poem.

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