One sunny morning a few months ago John Leahy, Dylan Kaler and I (John Murphy) were chatting over coffee while looking out across Dun Laoghaire harbour. The subject turned to the need for accurate real time wind and weather data for Dublin Bay and how we might build on the ideas behind the dublinbaybuoy.com website.
Several places were considered and discarded, but Dylan came up with a photo of the little granite hut built into the east pier. It was the site of the world’s first anemometer – the perfect location for a live display of real-time weather data.
We phoned Dun Laoghaire Rathdown (DLR) County Council and got very positive support from the harbour management team. In fact they had already restored the original tower and the display hardware was ready to reinstall, so our timing was perfect. The partnership was productive and arrangements proceeded rapidly towards a launch in October 2026. This project is now jointly operated by DLR County Council and CAI members as a community service.
Today the actual data is provided by a modern wind instrument. Barometric pressure and tidal height come from DLR’s tide gauge. Using data from AIS, the names of passing ships are shown on a map of the bay.
The weather station displays a QR code that brings visitors the CAI website, where they can see the same display on their own device at any time and learn more about our organisation.
https://cruising.ie/dlr-east-pier-weather-station/
We plan to extend the project over the next year to display similar live local data at other locations around Ireland.
John Murphy
Vice Commodore
Cruising Association of Ireland