Inside the Garda Sub-Aqua team with Tosh Lavery

Sue Leonard meets Tosh Lavery, who was one of the first recruits to the Garda Sub-Aqua team and whose eventful life and times he has recorded in a new memoir. 

It was January, 1979, when Ireland heard the news that the Betelgeuse had exploded off Whiddy Island, discharging 114,000 tonnes of oil into the sea off Bantry Bay. The explosion blew men standing on the jetty into the flaming sea, with the loss of 51 lives.

Whilst a Dutch salvage team worked on the vessel, the Garda Sub-Aqua unit were tasked with searching for bodies. And one of that team, (which was formed in 1974), was young Tosh Lavery.