‘Tom doesn’t want to be left at sea’

IF THE Pere Charles had returned safely to harbour in Dunmore East on that fateful night it sank, its skipper Tom Hennessy would be married to his fiancée Louise Doyle.

Engaged for seven years, he had just bought Ms Doyle an engagement ring and they had started to make plans for a summer wedding. They met in 1999, when Kerryman Tom arrived in Dunmore for a short fishing trip, but met Ms Doyle and ended up staying.

“We used to go back to Kerry two or three times a year,” she recalled yesterday.

“We were only down there at Christmas and he said to me, out of the blue: ‘When I die I want to be buried in Kerry,’ and I kind of thought it was very strange. It was only 12 days before the boat sank and we hadn’t been talking about it.

“It just came out of nowhere. That’s what drove me to get the boat up as well, he doesn’t want to be left out there.”

This Christmas will be altogether different.

“I don’t even want to think about Christmas. Tom always cooked the Christmas dinner, I sat back and relaxed and it was his day to do everything.”

Their daughters, Christine, five, and Jane, four, must face their first Christmas without their beloved dad.

“My five-year-old said to me she was delighted the boat was being raised. I asked her why and she said: ‘Because it shouldn’t be under the water,’ and I thought it was a good point. I know the kids are very young but I hope they will always remember him the way they do at the moment.”

Ms Doyle was speaking as the families of five fishermen lost on board the Pere Charles in January continued their long vigil last night in Dunmore East.

Today, some will travel to the site where their lives were torn apart 10 long months ago. With hopes remaining high that the Pere Charles will be brought to the surface sometime today, it will be the last chance for the relatives of Billy Coady, Andriy Dyrin, Pat O’Connor, Tom Hennessy, and Pat Hennessy to see the area where the craft lies.

They campaigned long and hard before finally getting the news they wanted in April, that a salvage company would be appointed to raise the trawler, along with the Maggie B. The suspicion lingers among the families and the wider community that the election played a vital role in their quest for answers.

Seven months later, that election has come and gone, but the Hennessys, the Coadys, the O’Connors and the Dyrins have waited for this day. Perhaps it will not bring them any closer to closure, perhaps it will not allow them to give their loved ones a decent burial, but they might end up knowing more about the fate of those five brave men.