Fishing brothers drowned in ‘unspeakable tragedy’
Paul, 49, Kenny, 47, and Shane, 44, Bolger all natives of the fishing village of Passage East in Co Waterford died on June 12, 2013, after an EPIRB signalling device — which should have sent a beacon to the emergency services when their vessel ran into trouble — failed to go off.
They left Dunmore East in their fishing boat, the Dean Leanne, at 7am and the alarm was raised by their uncle after 5pm when they did not return.
The three bodies were found and recovered by the coastguard’s rescue helicopter and the Dunmore East lifeboat after 6pm.
Yesterday’s inquest in Tramore heard rigor mortis had already set in, meaning some time had elapsed before their bodies were taken out of the water near Brownstown Head in Tramore Bay.
Anthony Bolger, who co-owned the boat his brothers, had not gone fishing as he had undergone heart surgery the previous April.
His evidence to the inquest and coroner Dr Eoin Maughan was the EPIRB device carried at all times by the boat was tested earlier in the year and found to be okay.
The EPIRB washed up on Tramore beach and was found three days after the tragedy. The position of the button on the device suggested one of the brothers had tried to manually activate it.
Testing found it to be “a dud”, Anthony Bolger told the inquest under questioning from Elaine Morgan BL, representing the family. He agreed it “didn’t do its job”.
The particular model of EPIRB was later recalled by its Australian manufacturers, Standard Communications PTY Ltd, following a safety alert.
The boat had been gifted to the four brothers by their father in 1989. Originally wooden, it was “fibre-glassed” and fitted with a new engine three years before the tragedy. All four had completed safety training in 2010.
The vessel also had, for safety, a hand-held radio and nine flares.
The brothers’ uncle Joe Whitty said he saw the brothers leaving the harbour. He returned in his boat at 5pm and when he realised his nephews weren’t back, contacted Dunmore East lifeboat station.
“I later heard on VHF three casualties had been recovered.”
Pathologist Dr Fergus McSweeney said his opinion was death was caused by drowning, with hypothermia a contributory factor in each case.
The jury returned a verdict of death by drowning in each case, and agreed with the coroner to return a verdict of “misadventure”.
Coroner Dr Maughan described the event as “an unspeakable tragedy visited upon the Bolger family”.
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