A life was wasted, says widow of fireman
Mary Murray said her husband’s death was a needless waste.
“The people of Bray need it. I just feel that his life was wasted yesterday, totally wasted. I want to know how many more [deaths] will it take before they put a full time service into Bray? How many more children, how many more people and families are they going to leave like this? I’ve got 15 children who are devastated.”
Her husband, Bray station’s sub-officer, was always calm and level-headed, she told RTÉ.
The family of firefighter Mark O’Shaughnessy, who also perished in the Bray factory blaze, spoke of the pressure he faced working for the town’s under-resourced fire service.
Eamon O’Shaughnessy said his brother Mark had just returned from a dream holiday with girlfriend Hazel O’Brien before he was killed tragically in Wednesday’s fire.
As a part-time fireman, he often got calls in the middle of the night, or when he was out with friends, and would have to rush to fire scenes, explained Eamon. His death was the “worst nightmare” for Eamon and his sister Niamh.
“Mark loved what he did. He was in the Civil Defence for about seven years. In his neighbourhood, he knew everyone and they all loved him to bits. He was involved in road traffic accidents and burning buildings, everything. His pager would go off and wherever he was, whether at home here or if out with his girlfriend or visiting his friends, he’d get in the car and drive up to the station.”
But as a part-time or “retained” firefighter, Mr O’Shaughnessy could never be far from the fire station.
“They can only be a few minutes from the station when on call.
“Basically, the firefighter is tied to being close to the station.
“The hardest thing is at nighttime when you’re not quite awake and you get woken up by a pager.
“Then you go off and you’re waking up as you go out the door,” his brother told the Irish Examiner.
On Wednesday when Mr O’Shaughnessy received the call out, he was with girlfriend Hazel. The couple had just returned from a dream trip. “He had been on a great holiday and been to Hazel’s friend’s wedding in Hawaii, a once in a lifetime trip,” added Eamon.
He had last spoken to Mark on Tuesday, only hours before he was killed.
“We got chatting and he was showing me pictures from his holiday.”
Mark regularly talked about the lack of resources for Bray’s fire service.
A mere 15 firefighters cover the busy town and locals have campaigned for a full time service.
“He talked about it a lot. In the meetings they went to that’s what the boys were looking for. I’m guessing it’s just the amount of money it would cost,” said Eamon.
It was difficult when the part time service received a lot of calls, especially if fighters were ill, he explained.
“With Dublin fire brigade, they would have lads who’d go in and know their watches, their shifts and would be ready on standby to be called.
“With retained service, they get paged and get there as quickly as they can, whether it’s a skip fire or a person’s reported [trapped], they don’t know.
“They just get there as quickly and as safely as they can, get into gear and go.
“And that’s what they did,” said Eamon O’Shaughnessy.
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