An unlikely beginning
The Portrush lifeboat station exists because of a conversation at a dinner party. In 1860, Laura, Countess of Antrim mentioned to RNLI secretary Richard Lewis that Portrush’s “iron-bound coast” could use a lifeboat. Within three weeks, a Staffordshire benefactor had funded three new RNLI boats — the Countess named two stations herself but left the third to Lewis’s discretion, and he recommended Portrush. Lord Antrim, persuaded by his mother, gave a boathouse site on Kerr Street; a public subscription funded the build. The first lifeboat arrived by steamer in December 1860, initially named Zelinda, then renamed Laura, Countess of Antrim once her role became known.
A station without a slipway
The first boathouse, just outside the harbour overlooking the West Strand, had no slipway at all — the lifeboat sat on a wheeled carriage, pulled by four hired horses to whatever stretch of coast suited a launch, then sailed or rowed back to the harbour’s “Wee Beach” afterward. A proper harbour at Port-an-dhu followed in 1889, with an RNLI slipway added in 1892. A new Lansdowne Lifeboat Station opened in 1900, but proved badly sited: in March 1916, storm seas flooded the boathouse to waist height, forcing crews to abandon a launch attempt until daybreak — a decision shaped by memory of November 1889, when three Portrush lifeboat volunteers had drowned. The lifeboat Hopwood — the last of Portrush’s “pulling and sailing” (non-motorised) lifeboats — served Lansdowne for 22 years, launching 10 times and saving 23 lives, before the station moved to its current harbourside site in 1924 with the town’s first motorised lifeboat.
The Argo Delos rescue, 1960
The station’s most dramatic single rescue came on 22 October 1960. The Greek cargo ship Argo Delos — 10,392 tons, sailing from Britain toward Communist Cuba with cargo for China, a genuine Cold War oddity — ran aground on the Tor Rocks off Inishtrahull, Ireland’s most northerly point, and broke in two. Alarm was raised at 2:30am; the lifeboat Lady Scott, under coxswain Sam Cunningham, launched into a Force 8 gale at 3:05am and reached the wreck at dawn after a 25- mile voyage. A Royal Navy frigate, HMS Leopard, also responded, landing a radio operator on the sinking ship to solve a language-barrier problem with the Greek crew.
Cunningham made three dummy runs before the first rescue attempt at 8:15am, working the Lady Scott alongside the wreck for nearly two hours in mountainous seas — the lifeboat rose and fell 15 feet with each swell, ropes parted three times, and a fouled line disabled the port propeller. Fourteen crew were taken off before the Lady Scott had to withdraw; the remaining 15 were airlifted by a Royal Navy helicopter. The Lady Scott returned to Portrush after more than 14 hours at sea, with no lives lost. Cunningham was awarded the RNLI Silver Medal for gallantry; Second Coxswain Robert McMullan received the Bronze Medal for staying on the oil-slicked deck throughout.
Still on watch
Since 1860, the Portrush lifeboat has launched more than 1,100 times and saved an estimated 350-plus lives. Today’s crew operates a Severn Class all-weather lifeboat — the largest class in the RNLI fleet, capable of 25 knots and a 250-nautical-mile range — alongside a smaller inshore inflatable, covering everything from Lough Foyle to Rathlin Island. The station’s annual Raft Race, started in 1982 by two men both connected to the RNLI and a local harbour bar, still runs as a fundraiser today — a single lifeboat launch costs the charity roughly £6,600.