‘It happened at the wrong end’

A FORMER GAA county minor footballer who drowned while trying to save a group of revellers in a Cavan lake had completed lifesaving courses in the waterway where he died.

However, while he was an accomplished swimmer, locals said Simon Delaney’s heroics tragically occurred at the “wrong end” of Gallon Lough, in a section which was treacherous due to its thick mud.

Mr Delaney and Dubliner Matthew Gibbons both drowned on Wednesday night after going to the rescue of six people who had been jumping and swimming from a small boat.

It is understood the group had life jackets with them but were not wearing them when they got into difficulty as the boat began to the sink.

Mr Gibbons, a 20-year-old who had been visiting relatives in Ballyjamesduff, was at the lake with the group in the boat but was onshore working at a barbecue at the time of the incident.

After it became obvious his friends were struggling with the sinking craft, he swam out to help them but began to get into difficulty.

Simon Delaney and his teammate Anthony Brady were driving past the lake on the way to a GAA match when they spotted the group in the water.

Both rushed over to the lake and Mr Brady helped to pull some of them to the shore and others got out of the water themselves.

However, it is believed 21-year-old Simon Delaney spotted that another man was in serious difficulty and tried to save him.

One local person said Mr Delaney managed to drag the person to within metres of the shore but then he himself sank to his death.

Anthony Brady’s father Peter said: “Simon was being pulled down by one of the men and Anthony went out after him but he couldn’t get to them.

“He went back out to try and find Simon in the water.”

Mr Brady said the teammates had swum in the lake as teenagers and completed lifesaving courses.

“They would be very good swimmers,” he said.

“They used to swim across the lake themselves, but this all happened in the wrong end. It’s very muddy and when they stood, it sunk them in.”

Yesterday morning, the group of people who were rescued from the water returned to the scene but would make no comment about the events of the previous night.

Chief fire officer Noel Burke, who is head of the local civil defence, said Mr Gibbons’s body was recovered less than 20 feet from the water’s edge.

“It’s just a terrible tragedy,” he added.