You might think a creamy head on a black pint should be the main qualification for a successful bartender. A Mayo garda and lifeboat second coxswain, his fellow crew, and members of the Mayo Lions Clubs have other ideas, however. They intend to give their award to the pint-puller who raises most money for safety at sea.
A fortnight for two in the Bahamas with £500, a fortnight in Florida, a week in the Canaries or a weekend in Paris are examples of what is on offer. The target is £100,000 for the Royal National Lifeboat Institution and it is up to pub employees as to how they raise it.
To kick the project off, the Ballyglass lifeboat took an unusual trip up the Moy estuary into Ballina at the weekend, where it was greeted by representatives of Mayo's four Lions Clubs - based in Ballina, Castlebar, Belmullet and Westport. Credit for the initiative is given to Supt Tony McNamara, second coxswain of the lifeboat and zone president of the Lions network, and solicitor Adrian Bourke of the Ballina Lions branch.
The RNLI depends on voluntary subscriptions, and much of the £4 million required annually to sustain almost 40 stations comes from Britain. A substantial bequest by two brothers in Bournemouth, England, paid for the Ballyglass Severn class offshore lifeboat.
The Ballyglass station dates back to 1989, when a long campaign led by locals bore fruit and a gap between the Galway Aran Islands and the Donegal Arran more station was filled. The trip up the Moy was fruitful as many in Ballina would not have seen the vessel before.
Meanwhile, the RNLI's training divisional inspector of lifeboats for Ireland, Ian Canavan, is among a group from the institution that flew to Mozambique last week to help with the flood relief effort.