Floods: Storm Desmond returns stolen rosary beads

Storm Desmond is being credited with the return of religious items, including a set of rosary beads, to a woman in Co Kerry in a bizarre story in which a hunter mistook her stolen bag for a sitting duck.

The woman, Eileen Finnegan from Kilgarvan, says she must be the only person in the country to be thankful for the storm — after it washed up a much-loved rosary beads which had been stolen from her car, along with a Padre Pio medal.

Eileen had been to Mass in Kilgarvan on Saturday, November 14, only to return to her car to find it had been broken into and her bag stolen. Two other cars were also broken into.

Aerial footage shows extent of floods in Cork, 'above normal' levels of rain forecast this… https://t.co/V4em5FMKPq pic.twitter.com/pXa12GQTOp

— Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) December 14, 2015

Her bag contained a sum of money but, more important to Eileen, it held her late mother’s rosary beads and a much treasured Padre Pio medal. She put an appeal out on local radio asking that the beads be returned but saying whoever stole the bag could keep the money.

A month later, Storm Desmond struck Kenmare, flooding the fields along the banks of the River Sheen. Last Friday, a duck shooter from Millstreet in Co Cork arrived and found what he believed to be a sitting duck — but it turned out to be Eileen’s bag.

The bag was “full of seaweed”, indicating it had been washed into the estuary and back again. All the zippers and pockets were open — but inside the lining was the rosary beads and the medal and Eileen’s name could still be made out.

Clean-up of floods will cost millions of euro says minister https://t.co/r7FHZ2DtM8 via @Junomaco (DOD) pic.twitter.com/1ri7OOZ8f0

— Irish Examiner (@irishexaminer) December 14, 2015

The duck shooter’s nephew, working in a local hotel, recalled Eileen’s appeal and she was traced and reunited with her bag and beads.

“Storm Desmond brought this to me,” she said on local radio yesterday. “I must be the only person in Ireland happy with that storm. Obviously whoever broke into the car took what they wanted from the bag and threw it over the ditch and the flood came in and washed it away.”