‘We stand here to mourn, but the love is not washed away’

Three coffins; three hearses outside the church in the village of Crooke; three men who loved boats and fishing from the time they could walk.

Three men who didn’t return from setting their lobster pots last Wednesday; three children left fatherless; three more names to be added to the memorial wall in Dunmore East.

Three brothers.

It’s in conditions like those that prevailed last week that the fishing communities dotted around this country’s coastline are at their most vulnerable, at the mercy of the wind and the water as loved ones put to sea to try to provide for their families.

But, as the funeral Mass for the Bolger brothers Paul, 49, Kenny, 47, and Shane, 44, demonstrated on Saturday, it’s also when such communities are at their most powerful.

The crowds that packed into the Church of John the Baptist until it was full and who filled its grounds and flowed onto the street outside, overlooking the waters which stretch from this part of Co Waterford across to Hook Head and Co Wexford, were proof of the solidarity of the people who came from far and wide to support the Bolgers and their families.

All through Thursday and Friday, friends, neighbours, and strangers who just wanted to sympathise travelled to the family home on Blynd Quay in Passage East; then to Hennessy’s funeral home in Waterford City as the three men lay in repose; and on Saturday to Crooke as the bodies were brought in three coffins, three hearses, to the church for funeral Mass.

More than a thousand people were there for Shane’s wife Lucy and children Calum and Martha-Kay; Paul’s partner Patricia and daughter Rachel; their mother Margaret; sisters Lynda and Paula; and brothers Michael and Anthony.

Included in the congregation were Minister for Agriculture and the Marine Simon Coveney, and President Michael D Higgins’s aide-de-camp Cmdt James Galvin, while Bishop William Lee of Waterford and Lismore gave the final blessing.

The Bolgers’ cousin, Michael Connors, spoke from the altar during the Mass about the support received by the family from fishing communities throughout the Irish coastline, and also of the “hurt and pain” being felt by all connected with Paul, Kenny, and Shane.

“Three fine gentlemen gone from us,” he said. “To be up here and see the pain on people’s faces, it’s unreal.”

Their brother-in-law, Colm O’Neill, spoke of “the beauty of the sea, the bounty of the sea, the power of the sea, the wrath of the sea”, which washed away 140 years of life last Wednesday. “We stand here to mourn, but the love is not washed away,” he said.

Mr O’Neill’s said Paul’s only thoughts were for his partner and daughter, working to provide for his family, while Shane was “the kindest and most gentle man I’ve been proud to know”. Kenny was “a man of a very unique type” who, “despite sometimes playing the fool, in fact had a great deal of knowledge and understanding”, he added.

In a powerful broadside at government policy, Mr O’Neill said: “This tragedy had its roots in a long descent into danger, caused by the removal of economic opportunity, again and again, without alternatives being made possible. Successive governments of all hues have, often with good intentions, restricted or removed categories of fish or types of fishing that could be exercised.

“Fishermen, particularly those of multi-generational families, have often had limited educational achievements or capital availability.

“This means that the measures taken have had a disproportionate effect on them. It must be understood that most fishermen, and particularly the Bolger brothers, believed strongly in the dignity of work and the need to be independent and to support themselves and, more particularly, their families. This caused them to move into areas of greater risk, to fish in smaller boats because they were allowed, and for stocks that were not restricted.

“They gave their lives seeking lobsters, for which they received less than 5% of the price paid. Enjoy your lobster thermidor.

“I will not ever again.”

After the Mass, the hearses made their way first to the cemetery in Crooke where a single tin whistle played ‘The Lonesome Boatman’ while the bodies of Kenny and Shane were laid to rest, before the funeral moved to Faithlegg Cemetery for the burial of Paul.

As Fr Brian Power put it in his homily during the Mass: “Three more names to be added to the memorial in the harbour in Dunmore.”