Families of lost trawler crew gather at harbour as ‘longest days’ go on

ALL day they gathered in Dunmore East’s meeting points.

Along the pier, in the hotels, at the harbour wall, in the RNLI station — relatives and friends of Pat Hennessy, his nephew Tom Hennessy, Billy O’Connor, Pat Coady, and Andriy Dyrin congregated in anticipation of news.

Sadly, it was another day of hope rising and hope falling. After Tuesday’s no-go out at sea, the calmer weather forecast for yesterday gave hope that the agonising wait would soon be at an end.

If Tuesday’s exploratory work was never going to yield definitive results, tentative predictions were that yesterday would be a better one for the Navy diving team, waiting above the wreck of the Pere Charles, off Hook Head.

The families of the five men kept to themselves earlier in the week and largely stayed at home, while coastguard officials and navy officers waited for the calm weather window that could allow a full recovery operation to be completed.

All the indications were that yesterday would be the day when divers could finally get inside the wreck of the herring boat, after more than two weeks.

The calm sea and still air promised to allow those brave divers to fully check the interior of the Pere Charles, lying on its side at the bottom of the sea.

For the last couple of days, the Irish Lights ship Granuaile, being used as a diving platform and a store for equipment by the Navy team, has been clearly visible from Dunmore East — and local people have been watching from their town, their street, their pier, their harbour; hoping against hope that the bodies of the lost fishermen would be found in the trawler, would be brought home.

As a close relative of one of the men said last week, these have been the longest days of their lives.

Six o’clock yesterday evening marked two weeks since the Dunmore East-based trawler suffered an unknown trauma — thought by some to have been a freak wave — and went down in what must have been a matter of seconds, unseen by the nearby Susanna G, with which it had just completed a successful day’s fishing for herring.

On their way back from a hard day’s work, the men were only a short trip away from Dunmore.

Skipper Tom Hennessy had just issued instructions to the harbourside to have everything ready to get the catch off the ship and allow the men get home to their families.

But catastrophe struck, and two weeks of heartache and horrendous waiting have followed for those families.

In the meantime, weather and sea conditions have thwarted most attempts to get into the sea or reach the wreck.

The first time they made it into the water, the divers got less than halfway down to the vessel; the second time, on Tuesday of last week, they got to the exterior of the Pere Charles and were able to confirm its identity, but not get inside.

Two days ago, more exploratory work followed and a plan was put in place as to how the recovery operation would go ahead when the weather and tides allowed.

Yesterday provided the calmest conditions since the sinking of the trawler, and the best hope for recovery. However, by late afternoon, it was clear that it wasn’t going to happen.

More work, yes; more progress, yes; but closure, for the loved ones of the five tragic fishermen, remains elusive.