Lee Early, deputy coxswain of the RNLI’s Arranmore lifeboat in Donegal lost his life in 2019, but his name is one of 10,000 which will be inscribed on the hull of the new Shannon class lifeboat bound for Clifden, Co Galway.
The launch a memory campaign run as a fundraiser for Clifden has been such a success that it is already a sell-out.
Among those who have also booked names, at a suggested donation of €30, are Mary McDonagh of Claddaghduff, Co Galway who is remembering her father, the late Fechin Mulkerrin Senior and her two brothers, Fechin and Liam.
Fechin Mulkerrin who died in 2009
“ Liam, a fisherman, drowned at the age of 25 in Galway in 1984, and my brother Fechín died with a neighbour Tony Coohill off Aughris point near Claddaghduff while checking pots in April 2009,” McDonagh explains.
Liam Mulkerrin who died in 1984
“Fechín had grown up children and grandchildren, while Tony had two young children, the youngest a baby,” she says.
“They had only been back fishing a short while after the economic downturn hit construction.”
Her father, also Fechín, had made six currachs for the Cleggan regatta in 1987 in memory of Liam several years after his death, and they were launched at an event attended by the late Fianna Fáil minister Brian Lenihan.
Mary McDonagh's father, Fechín Mulkerrin
Journalist Megan Roantree is also remembering her late father, Sean, who was on both the RNLI Aran island crew and skippered the Aran ferry. However, Megan discovered something rather unusual about her dad when she was double-checking the spelling of her name...and for any of you who remember it, the BBC series Colditz is a clue...
Journalist Megan Roantree
Megan with her late father, Captain Sean Roanteee
Both Mary McDonagh and Megan Roantree spoke to Wavelengths about what the RNLI launch a memory campaign has meant to them, and you can hear them both below in the podcast
This group photo is of from the launch of currachs built by her dad Fechín in memory of his son Liam which were launched at Cleggan regatta in 1987, three years after Liam's death (from left to right) Teresa Murray, Thomas Madden, Fr John McCarthy, Thomas King, Peter A. Lacey, Seán Birmingham, William Hughes, Bernadette Conroy, Brian Lenihan Snr., Stephen King, Fechín Mulkerrin Snr., Mark Killilea and Séamus Brennan.
And a recording of the 1987 Cleggan regatta, where the late Brian Lenihan launched Fechín Mulkerrin’s six currachs, can be seen on Connemara History’s social media page here.
