Magheramorne Makes a big Splash
8-9-06

Peter Steele, from the North Irish Lodge PADI Dive Resort on Islandmagee, reports on the Dive Ireland 2006 exhibition and conference held earlier this year in Belfast and his ideas for the All-Ireland Diving Centre at Magheramorne.

For the first time in Ireland, all three international governing bodies for diving (BSAC, CFT and PADI) came together in February to promote scuba diving in Ireland. It was a triumph and honour for Northern Ireland that this amalgamation took place in Belfast, at the Ramada Hotel.

The Dive Show was attended by an unbelievable number of people – not just divers but their friends and relatives and people just interested in the sport.

Peter Steele - our intrepid reporter!

The main feature throughout the Dive Show was the frenzy of interest in the proposed All-Ireland Diving Centre in Magheramorne Quarry. The fly-through of the regeneration proposals at Magheramorne was displayed not only on our own stand but also in the main conference hall and in the reception.

The Dive Show got off to an unbelievable start. Normally such occasions in Ireland don’t start to move until 9.30 or even 10am, depending on the ‘craic’ the night before, but we had barely got set up before swarms of people started arriving at our stand at 8.45 wanting to know more about Magheramorne and, in particular, to ask when it is going to happen.

Having been in discussion with Lafarge over the past few years on how the new diving centre might work, we were able to explain our various ideas to people: how old trains, planes, tanks, shipwrecks and the inevitable Blue Circle lorry could be placed in the lake for divers to explore; how there might be an underwater artificial garden; and how there would hopefully be an underwater viewing facility for non-divers, not just so that they could see the divers swimming around but so that they can also appreciate the beauty and wonder of the gravity-free environment and all the marine life – marine education and awareness being seen by us all as a key element of the proposal.

Since the Dive Show, we at the North Irish Lodge have conducted our own survey of divers and their non-diving friends. We have received nothing but support for the project, both in terms of the dive centre and the overall proposals.

I have no doubt that the All-Ireland Dive Centre at Magheramorne would be a world class facility. It would be on a par, if not surpass, the leading diving centre in the UK at Stoney Cove in Leicestershire, attracting many visitors from far afield – a view reinforced by the many people we spoke to at the Dive Show.

The Quarry lake: its surface area is greater than the size of a dozen football pitches.