‘This place won’t be the same without them’

TO ANYONE who lived in Glengarriff, they were known as the “gentlemen’s fishing club”.

Richard, Mike, Ziggy and Eddie loved and lived for the sea. They also loved life and would always be in the middle of whatever debate, argument, joke or sing-song was raging in the local bars. “They were the town characters. This place won’t be the same without them,” said one young woman who was attempting to console a distraught elderly man outside the Maple Leaf bar on Main Street.

Yesterday, the Beara Peninsula village was full of tourists, armed with maps and cameras, who were blissfully unaware of the collective heartache the town was suffering.