Ducks in the Liffey
Heidi | June 3, 2006Today before I went to the (lame) Women’s World Show at the RDS to get my number for the Mini-Marathon on Monday, I looked out my window. I saw a boat with a lot of boxes. The boat was just sitting the the river piled full of boxes. I thought it was strange and wondered about it but left to go to the RDI.
When we came home, I happened to look out my window again. Now there were a few boats in the water and ducks all over the Liffey. Apparently there was a plastic duck race to raise money for Children’s Hospital Crumlin. The website said it was an attempt to break a world’s record for the most ducks in a race. There were 150,000 of them. People bought the ducks and then they were raced down the Liffey at 3:30 PM. What I would like to know is why they were being thown out of the river to people on the street at 7:00 PM if this was an attempt to break the world record and the ducks were supposed to float away from the bridge where they started. You can read more about the duck event at:
http://www.childrenslifeline.ie/html/newsdetail.php?newsid=61&new=y
Sorry, I haven’t figured out how to do links where you get to click on the title and it opens up the page…
I think part of the problem was that the Liffey was still and the ducks just wouldn’t participate at all by actually swimming. well they do say never work with animals and children.
Some did manage to break away from the crowd, so that would have been the winner.
I was by here earlier and took loads of pics when they were being dumped and later when they were throwing them to people. but sure what else could they do with 150,000 ducks? We got five and our doggie is delighted.
I also took a lot of pictures from my apartment window but have difficulty posting them on this site since my images are huge. I posted a few more on my site.
Hey, my daughter found one of these ducks abandoned at Oysterhaven near Cork city the weekend before last. I put in a small blog entry about it in my website:
http://www.tradingnothing.com/blog_sep_06.html (Sept 23rd entry)
It must have been out at sea for over 3 months I guess…
[...] I wrote this piece over on The Dublin Community Blog on Tuesday evening, about the 150,000 rubber ducks that were recently released into the River Liffey as part of a charity fundraiser for Crumlin Childrens Hospital (more details here). So, imagine my suprise when I was standing on the DART today, and saw a nearby passenger reading this: [...]
Hey,
Thought you would like to know that I just found one of these ducks today, 21 October 2009, in Camber Sands, Kent.
Over 3 years since the race began and a long old journey round the coast.
Hi folks, I am one of the original organisers from the day. The problem with the actual race was no current and an unecpected unforcast wind against the race. We had an extra boost of current from poolafuca damn but alas only a few ducks started the race.
We decided that we should give a few ducks back to the people who turned up to watch the race as we were really disappointed.
As for travelling ducks, the one found furthest away was in Poland 2 years after the race, One was found in Sydney Australia, but we think he had help getting there.
Thats our story,apologies for getting to the blog late but i have just truley accepted technology.
Regards
Ciaran@childrenslifeline.ie
http://www.nwzonline.de/index_regionalausgaben_kreis_wesermarsch_elsfleth_artikel.php?id=2278523&
I thought you’d like to know that I found one of your ducks on the north-west coast of the Isle of Man this week (Thurs 13th May, 2010). The number is faint, but I think its 72819. Certainly not as long a voyage as some, but surely one of the slowest?! 4 years to come a few miles over the Irish Sea! That’s slower than the Steam Packet ferry!
I thought you’d like to know that I found one of your ducks on the north-west coast of the Isle of Man this week (Thurs 13th May, 2010). The number is faint, but I think its 72819. Certainly not as long a voyage as some, but surely one of the slowest?! 4 years to come a few miles over the Irish Sea! That’s slower than the Steam Packet ferry!
Found duck on the Isle of Whithorn (Southern Scotland). 1st June 2010
no number on it though!
Just found one on Walney 25 sept 2010, half full of water must of sprung a leak on the way over.