A working station, not a museum
The first thing to know is that you cannot just walk in. The lifeboat station on the pier at Courtown is an active RNLI base, crewed by volunteers and ready to launch around the clock, so visits are by appointment only. Arrange one through the RNLI’s Courtown station and you get something a regular museum can’t offer: the crew talking you through the slipway, the launch drill and what an inshore shout actually involves, in the building they scramble from.
The boat doing that work is a D-class inshore lifeboat, Frank (D-846), on station since 2020. It is a small, fast craft, with a top speed of 25 knots and a range of about three hours, built for close-in rescues off the beaches and harbour. It was named in May 2022 after the late Frank Watkin, whose wife Kathleen funded it. The crew’s record gives the appointment its weight: since the station reopened, Courtown volunteers have answered more than 240 calls, brought 515 people to safety and saved 46 lives.
The history
Courtown has had a lifeboat since local residents petitioned the RNLI in 1865. The institution’s Manchester branch put up £300 to pay for the first boat, the Alfred and Ernest, which arrived that December, and a slipway followed in 1885. The boathouse you see today was built in 1911 at a cost of £740.
The station closed in 1925 and stayed shut for 65 years, save for the Second World War, when Courtown was one of thirteen auxiliary stations set up around the Irish coast, working a motor fishing boat kept on retainer. The RNLI returned for good in 1990, placing a D-class lifeboat at the old boathouse for evaluation that May, and an inshore station has run from the pier ever since. Arklow, to the north, keeps the nearest all-weather lifeboat; Wexford, to the south, has its own inshore boat.
Visiting and the shop
Entry is free, and the ground-floor gift shop is run by volunteers, selling RNLI gear and souvenirs with every penny of profit going to the service. The shop keeps limited hours, often a Saturday, so check before making a special trip. Appointments for the station itself are generally easier to fix outside the busy summer months, when the crew has more time. There is a small free car park by the harbour wall that fills fast in summer.
Getting there and nearby
Courtown sits about 6km south-east of Gorey, with the nearest railway station at Gorey roughly 7km away. Public transport is thin: Bus Éireann route 379 runs on Mondays and Saturdays to Gorey and on to Wexford via Curracloe, and the Wednesday-only Rural Roadrunner adds a midweek option. A car is the practical way here.
Make a half-day of it. Seal Rescue Ireland, the Republic’s main seal rehabilitation centre, is in the village and runs pre-booked feeding sessions (around €20). Courtown Woods, just east of the harbour, has four way-marked trails through sheltered coastal woodland. And the village’s other claim to fame is the Dinky Take-Away, whose chips have been voted the best in Ireland on national radio.