Grey, cold sky reflects mood of mourning seaside townland

This beautiful part of West Cork can rarely have looked as desolate as it did yesterday — a grey and cold sky draped over the scene of an almost unimaginable tragedy.

Three miles out from Ballydehob, down swooping lanes with grass growing in the middle of the tarmac and out to the end of the road lies the McCarthy family farmhouse, home to Martin, Rebecca, and 3-year-old Clarissa.

Literally a stone’s throw away is the sea, eternally lapping up onto a shaley strip of beach maybe 200m wide — the place where gardaí believe Martin entered the water with his daughter in the cold darkness of Tuesday night.

The scene was sealed off as gardaí continued their investigations into a tragedy which has shaken local people to the core of their beings. This is a place, says local Church of Ireland rector Steve McCann, “where everyone knows everyone”, and yet a place where a distance of a few miles can mean the difference between really knowing someone, and them being a passing acquaintance.

Even the cattle in the McCarthy yard at Foilnamuck seemed to sense that something was wrong. Every now and then they would begin long in unison, their manager now gone.

Martin, a 50-year-old farmer, was a popular figure in the area. He played Santa at Christmas time, was a strong supporter of Fine Gael, and a hard worker. Clarissa was the apple of his eye, and according to one visitor to the scene yesterday, Martin’s friend Leslie Swanton, “a sweet child”.

“I knew Martin all my life,” he said. “We went to school for a spell together, we were [regularly] just talking on the phone, things life that.”

Leslie, quivering in his boots, said he had spoken to Martin at 6pm on Tuesday. Nothing could indicate the tragedy that was to unfold hours later.

“Shocked, totally shocked,” he said. “She was a great little girl, very forward for her age. I often chatted to her on the phone. No words can explain it.

“Such a sweet child — you can’t imagine what was going on at the time. I feel very sorry for his wife Rebecca. I hope that our prayers will get her through it.”

Rebecca, who works in Goleen Post Office, will need all those prayers and more. An American in her late-20s, she had returned home late on Tuesday when she noticed that both Martin and Clarissa were missing, and immediately raised the alarm.

The search quickly began around the farmland but then extended to the nearby cove, a narrow strip of land with water on both sides and a few small boats at the end. It is understood Rebecca was standing on the shore when first the body of Clarissa, and later that of her husband, were recovered. Despite the valiant efforts of those gathered in this lonely cove, Clarissa could not be saved.

The house was empty yesterday, bar the investigating gardaí from various stations around West Cork, and there was little sound apart from the shallow waves and the protesting cattle. Two dogs, one white, one black, nipped up and down the lane, and after a while there were more visitors, two women and a man.

Friends of the family, they were understandably reluctant to talk, but one of the women, Catherine Norman, said: “They are a lovely family and he is a very hard working farmer. Nobody can say and nobody can judge.” She said the community would rally around and help Rebecca in any way they could.

Just last year Rebecca was photographed, along fellow members of the Ballydehob Irish Countrywomen’s Association (ICA) at the unveiling of a plaque in remembrance of three local women who had been aboard the Titanic but who escaped on lifeboats. Yesterday Leita Camier, one of those who take part in the commemoration, said she did not really know the family but that they had seemed “very happy”.

That happiness has now been blown apart, atomised in some lost moments of Tuesday night in a place both isolated and idyllic. At this time of year the nearby holiday homes are all empty, but yesterday the place seemed emptier still.

This remote place at the end of the road instead seemed like it was at the end of the earth.