A memory of April 13th 2001

On the Friday 13th April 2001, an utterly tumultuous family tragedy came to a conclusion. At 09:45am on that Friday morning, which happened to be Good Friday, we started to overhear rumours that the Garda divers had found what they were looking for in the Shannon.

By 10:35am it was confirmed that we had found our cousin and friend, who had been missing for the previous six days.

That morning started off like any other during the previous six days of our Easter holidays – Methodological by this point. We went down to the slipway in Ballina; We gathered in the truck that one of the local businesses had put at the Search teams disposal; Tea/Coffee and most importantly Chicken & Wedge snack-boxs were beginning to arrive from the local shop, as it had done for the previous six days.

If you will remember Spring 2001, Ireland was on high-alert for the possible impact of Foot and Mouth Disease and every seaport, pub, farm, shop, street, sports stadiums had its own individual border police of disinfectant pools and power-washers to prevent the disease entry. Even the St. Patrick’s Day Festival in March 2001 had been cancelled because of the fears of contagion. None of that really seemed to matter to the scores of people in my community and beyond who gave up their time freely to do shore and land searches during those first couple of days.

The local ESB workshop was used to make a three-pronged iron hook which was tied by a neon-blue rope. This was used by the flotilla of local fishing boats to dredge the floor in the hope that something might snag – alot of things snagged; Thankfully none of those were what we were looking for. I am grateful in hindsight for this.

People came from the Nenagh Sub-Aqua club and the Limerick Search and Rescue Team to do searches in the early part of the week; both snorkeling and divers but it was very murky and cloudy underneath the recesses of the majestic river Shannon.

The Garda divers arrived on the Wednesday evening, after being on another search and rescue mission. I still held out hope that this was still a Search and Rescue mission; We had adverts on local radio – we even used his middle name, which we were convinced he would kill us for allowing to happen when he came home. “Maybe he had ran away – But why we pondered?”. Maybe he was in Limerick/Dublin. Yes that was it. It had to be it. He was lost somewhere. Maybe…Maybe…Maybe…Every possible permutation – I think we went through them all. However this was  not a Search and Recovery mission, just yet.

They devised a grid-search system to begin a systematic search of the riverbed. The power station in Ardnacrusha had slowed down the flow of water at the Weir. They began on the Killaloe side of the bank and swept down and up but they did not find anything on the Thursday.

On the Friday 13th April 2001, an utterly tumultuous family tragedy came to a conclusion. At 09:45am on that Friday morning, which happened to be Good Friday, we started to overhear rumours that the Garda divers had found what they were looking for in the Shannon.

By 10:35am it was confirmed that we had found our cousin and friend, who had been missing for the previous six days.

Despite this tragedy concluding ten years to the day today, I can remember some of it in the most vivid of detail and the sheer raw emotion that goes with any tragedy. Almost ten years later, alot of things have changed and alot has not; People have moved away and moved back; Foot and Mouth disease is back in the headlines as recently as five weeks ago. However this was one of those defining life points that can never be changed and one where alot of people grew up very quickly.

Some good did come from this tragedy – the local community got together in one of the local hotels a month later and setup its own local Search and Rescue unit which was to serve the lower part of Lough Derg. I was involved in the unit in its early days and I was always struck by the level of dedication to the preservation of life which those involved showed. While I am no longer involved now, the SAR unit is ten years old this year and has evolved to the become one of the first inland unit of the Irish Coast Guard – all on a voluntary basis. I would encourage all of you, who have a love of water but most importantly a respect for water to consider a donation to your local SAR unit.  You will never know when a tragedy even among the most experience of us will occur.

So today Seoirse, here is a song for you. I trust you are keeping out of trouble up there and looking after your brother, your other cousin and Gran.