Emotional scenes as drownings confirmed at inquest

An inquest has found a West Cork farmer and his daughter both died from drowning after he entered the sea with her, with the verdict delivered yesterday amid highly charged scenes in Bantry.

Coroner Frank O’Connell said in his verdict that, on the evening of March 5 last year, at Foilnamuck, Audley Cove, near Ballydehob, 3-year-old Clarissa McCarthy died from acute cardio-respiratory failure as a result of drowning, having been taken into the water just yards from the family home by her father, Martin McCarthy, aged 50.

Mr O’Connell said that Martin McCarthy’s death, also from acute cardio-respiratory failure from drowning, had been “self-caused”. Earlier, state pathologist Margaret Anne Bolster told the inquest that Mr McCarthy’s death would have been “accelerated” by the fact that he had severe coronary artery disease.