Shipping
Unlike Great Britain, Ireland has no tunnel or bridge connection to mainland Europe. Thus the vast majority of heavy goods trade is done by sea. Northern Ireland ports handle 10 million tonnes of goods trade with Great Britain annually, while ports in the Republic of Ireland handle 7.6 million tonnes, representing 50% and 40% respectively of total trade by weight.
The Port of Liverpool handles 32 million tonnes of cargo and 734 thousand passengers a year. Holyhead port handles most of the passenger traffic from Dublin and Dún Laoghaire ports, as well as 3.3 million tonnes of freight.
Ports in the Republic handle 3,600,000 travellers crossing the sea each year, amounting to 92% of all Irish Sea travel. This has been steadily dropping for a number of years (20% since 1999), probably as a result of low cost airlines.
Ferry connections from Great Britain to Ireland across the Irish Sea include the routes from Swansea to Cork, Fishguard and Pembroke to Rosslare, Holyhead to Dún Laoghaire, Holyhead to Dublin, Cairnryan to Belfast and Larne to Cairnryan. There is also a connection between Liverpool and Belfast via the Isle of Man or direct from Birkenhead. The world's largest car ferry, Ulysses, is operated by Irish Ferries on the Dublin Port–Holyhead route; Stena Line also operates between Britain and Ireland. The Port of Barrow-in-Furness, despite being one of Britain's largest shipbuilding centres and being home to the United Kingdom's only submarine-building complex, is only a minor port.
"Irish Sea" is also the name of one of the BBC's Shipping Forecast areas defined by the coordinates: 54°50′N 05°05′W / 54.833°N 5.083°W / 54.833; -5.083 54°45′N 05°45′W / 54.75°N 5.75°W / 54.75; -5.75 52°30′N 06°15′W / 52.5°N 6.25°W / 52.5; -6.25 52°00′N 05°05′W / 52°N 5.083°W / 52; -5.083
There have been various tentative proposals for an Irish Sea Tunnel.
During World War I the Irish Sea became known as "U-boat Alley", because the U-boats moved their emphasis from the Atlantic to the Irish Sea after the United States entered the war in 1917.
- See also: Transport in Ireland, Transport in the United Kingdom, Transport on the Isle of Man
Read more about this topic: Irish Sea
Famous quotes containing the word shipping:
“I need not tell you of the inadequacy of the American shipping marine on the Pacific Coast.... For this reason it seems to me that there is no subject to which Congress can better devote its attention in the coming session than the passage of a bill which shall encourage our merchant marine in such a way as to establish American lines directly between New York and the eastern ports and South American ports, and both our Pacific Coast ports and the Orient and the Philippines.”
—William Howard Taft (1857–1930)
“Talk of a divinity in man! Look at the teamster on the highway, wending to market by day or night; does any divinity stir within him? His highest duty to fodder and water his horses! What is his destiny to him compared with the shipping interests?”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)