Coastguard widower tells of his grief

When coastguard volunteer Bernard Lucas was paged to take part in a search and rescue mission in Kilkee, he had no idea that his wife was the casualty.

“We got paged to go and the text came through that there was an upturned boat in Kilkee. So I went on the boat to assist and when we got to the pier in Kilkee, I was called ashore by gardaí and I was told there had been an accident and that Caitríona was involved,” Bernard said.

“I wasn’t aware that it was going to be that extreme,” he told Seán O’Rourke on RTÉ radio yesterday.