Cobh’s long-running People’s Regatta festival ended with the traditional fireworks display on Sunday night 14/08/16.

The annual display has been ingrained in the memories of countless people who, as children, were brought to see the pyrotechnic wonder. One woman in her eighties recalled, as a young girl, trying to see the display from a hill many miles away while this writer saw them first about 50 years ago for the first time.

This year’s crop of youngsters couldn’t wait for the display to begin. Their first countdown from ten started about 10minutes prematurely and was quickly followed by another about five minutes later each one finishing with oohs and aahs of disappointment when nothing happened! Not to be deterred, they started another which finished just a tad prematurely this time and was followed by the inevitable audible disappointment. However just as their disappointment was at its height, the first rocket screamed skywards instantly changing the mood of the kids to screams of excitement!

ECCG were stationed right around the display from Whitepoint to Fort Davis and some really nice colour bursts were captured that have all been posted in our gallery of the event.

Ten minutes later and the memories of 2016 were sealed into the consciousness of a thousand young minds around the harbour ready to be recalled  over the many decades to come. Well done Cobh for keeping this annual event going over all those years.