Farewell to the Julia – Cork's lost passenger ferry

Running along the docks this morning I was caught up in the City Marathon to my own bemusement, and glanced across at the empty stretch of water where Julia used to sit. She had been a friendly presence in the port of Cork for the last couple of years. High and unmissable, you would catch glimpses of her from various parts of town. Initially she was busy between here and France and back again. But economics intervened and she was left redundant to sit indefinitely in the port until the sad day she turned round and left altogether: April 28th, 2012. Apparently she's servicing the Dutch oil rigs off the North Sea now.

Below is a riston print I did in the printmakers' on Wandesford Quay in 2010, and the next is sunset over the port and train station taken from my house only days before the departure. You can see the empty Elysium building just to her left, monument to the heydaze of the Celtic tiger, and the old R&H Hall building a little left of that again.