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DONEGAL CORONER DR Denis McCauley recommended that clear warning signs be erected at Tullan Strand, Bundoran to prevent further tragedies.
The coroner was speaking after recording a finding of accidental death of Corporal Gavin Carey (27) of Mullingar, Co Westmeath. The soldier drowned after getting into difficulties on the beach in August last year.
“We have heard that the beach was known to locals to be dangerous,” said Dr McCauley.
“We find here two occasions where people who were not from the area – Gavin and his colleagues and the Fermanagh football team who had to be rescued last week – weren’t aware of the dangers associated with it.”
I will be contacting Donegal County Council to encourage them to review the situation, particularly in relation to signage from the road and also from the army land.
The inquest heard that Corporal Carey from Custume Barracks, Athlone was in Finner Camp near Bundoran training ahead of deployment to the Lebanon.
On 23 August after training had finished for the day, the soldier and five colleagues went by road to Tullan Strand, which borders Finner Camp.
One of the party was suffering from an ear infection and stayed on the beach. The other five entered the water up to only waist-height and splashed around for about 20 minutes.
They got into difficulties when they tried to leave the water.
Alan O’Connor who was in the water with Corporal Carey described how the terrifying situation unfolded.
He said:
We were fine up till we went to leave the water. Our feet were on the ground but we were going backwards. We weren’t going any closer to the shore. There was no grip. We tried swimming and then we had difficulty getting our feet on the ground. We were going further out.
“I was furthest out. Dean [Toan] was in the middle. Gavin was actually the closest to the shore.”
Rocks
At this point, they decided to make for the rocks.
“We shouted to each other,” he said. “The waves were pushing me that way. I struggled to get up to the rocks.”
It was then that the group realised Corporal Carey was missing.
A member of the public asked him if everyone was there. O’Connor said his friend was missing. The man gave O’Connor his phone to call the coastguard.
Bundoran Lifeboat responded within minutes, beginning a massive search that would last almost a week.
The inquest heard from Boyne Fisherman Rescue and Recovery Service volunteer Mark O’Malley who joined the search with his crew on 28 August. He described studying the natural flow of the water and then devising a search grid for divers. This quickly led to the discovery of Corporal Carey’s remains at the cliff area known as Flat Rocks.
Mother
The late soldier’s mother Patricia Peyton told the inquest that she came to Donegal as soon as she heard her son was missing. She vowed she was not going to leave without him.
It was she who formally identified the remains. She told the inquest: “He was not just my son, he was my best friend. I lost everything when I lost him.”
McCauley asked Sergeant Damian Gaffney from Bundoran Garda Station to describe Tullan Strand.
The sergeant said:
It is a very long beach used mainly by surfers. Locals walk it. It is known that there are rip tide undercurrents.
Sergeant Gaffney explained how these deadly currents affect bathers: “You have waves coming in but you also have waves going out underneath.”
It is this hidden undercurrent that makes it impossible for people to get to shore, pushing them out to sea instead.
When asked if there was anything to warn beach users of the dangers, the sergeant said there was one sign in the car park.
“The signage is close to the entrance,” said Sergeant Gaffney. “I looked at it yesterday evening and it was quite faded. It would have to be upgraded.”
Rip tide
The sergeant told the inquest that a similar incident occurred only last week when a football team visiting from Fermanagh were training on the beach.
“After their training session, the trainer allowed them to cool off in the water,” he said.
They were just up to their waists and they got caught in a rip tide. Luckily there were instructors from a local surf school there at the time to rescue them.
Dr McCauley then summed up the result of the post-mortem examination. He said pathologist Dr Paul Hartel had reported death by drowning.
The coroner said the death had been a terrible accident.
“Gavin and his colleagues went for a paddle as many of us do on a fine day in Donegal,” said Dr McCauley.
He said the men found themselves in a terribly stressful situation when they couldn’t make their way back to shore. The coroner said they had done the right thing in trying to reach the rocks.
“Gavin unfortunately couldn’t get to the rocks,” he said.
Dr McCauley said it was one of the roles of the Coroner’s Court to establish if anything could be done to prevent further tragedies.
It was on that basis that he would raise the matter of improved signage with Donegal Co Council.
The inquest was held in Kee’s Hotel, Stranorlar, Co Donegal earlier today.
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Why are travellers considered a vulnerable group again? Most people feel vulnerable in the presence of them
Polemic for green thumbs
FF and reform have being an excellent combination before. Such a crap bill from them.
Ronan, sound like one of those totally biased comment that is of course unless you have fully read the proposed bill which from the tone of your comment you have not but then you would say you have even if you did not. Good that you recognise that FF and reform are an excellent combination though!
Reform of the Seanad is a waste of time and energy. We need electoral and Dail reform. Reform of the Seanad would just be an exercise in “mass distraction”.
I think that’s finally sinking in for people now. Party list or MMR would eliminate the parish pump, public financed elections and lobbying reform would eliminate power of special interests. Giving the president reference to the people power for bills on his own would cut down on uturns and broken promises post election. Tinkering with the senates not going to get us anywhere the bad decisions that got this state into trouble were made in the dail and the cabinet and at closed functions with special interests that’s where reform needs to b focused.
There will be plenty of reform very soon this gov has to and will go to the park very soon
The absolute cynicism and contempt with which FG conducted the Seanad referendum was a disgrace .You would think kenny would have learnt a touch of humility from the kicking he took from voters, but as we’ve seen since the GSOC debacle, he’s still conducting himself the same way.
The way I look at it is that it wasn’t Kenny who took the kicking but rather the voters themselves who are on the receiving end – we have to pay for it and, possibly worse still, put up with this constant stream of proposed reforms that will never happen. We made our bed – I just wish that now we’d lie quietly in it.
‘currently “ignored” representatives of people with disabilities, the elderly and the Travelling community’ Aren’t the elderly already well represented? given the age profile of our public representatives?
There is not one Tasmanian in the Dáil or Seanad. I think this is a disgrace, How can we sleep at night.
Why only those select groups, why not every ethnic minority, race and fungi the dolphin, sure he’s nearly human.
The Seanad is fine as is.
Stupid idea is stupid.
“The Seanad is fine as it is”.
Thanks for the laugh.
The Seanad IS fine as it is – a totally irrelevant home for the semi-retired and the unelectable – paid for by me and thee. What could be finer?
The irish electorate have a wonderful way of mentally inserting things into referendum proposals that aren’t there..the senate one was about reform Lisbon was about abortion, gays, enshrining or destroying neutrality depending who you spoke to. Reform was NOT on the ballot paper. Your choice was keep a chamber of wannabes n hasbeens or loose it, u decided to keep it, under there logic that this chamber, which had never once checked govt power and had never used one of its main powers of review, article 27, should be kept…because its a critical check on govt power.
Many of us tried desperately before the election to explain the illogic of that to the public and tried to tell you that they would never give u real reform but you would not listen. Remember that in 2016 when the candidate nobody in your area voted for suddenly has the title ‘senator’ and a seat in parliament anyway. You made an adult choice and didnt heed warnings that it was a bad one. Learn from it.
Well said Ryan!!
Not true. The government were trying to sneak in other reforms as well and these were also rejected.
Talking about his Mehole again
Typical politician’s this is designed not to represent the people of this country but to look good in Europe
I really hope #BrassNeckNomination doesn’t become a thing…
I hope it does James,,a monthly ‘brass neck’ winner should be announced , the preceding months recipient could hand over a trophy to the incoming ….see who gets it most often …
Gerry Adams can be the brass neck patron
Marginalised groups including Eu foreign nationals living and working in ireland should be represented inthe Seanad particularly as they are not given the opportunity to vote in Irish elections.
You see my point everyone has their own ideas and all the people with them hate the other guys ideas..senate reform is a mirage it can’t b done we should just get rid of it. That doesn’t mean giving the govt more power (the senates never been a barrier to govt power, by design) we can giver further review powers to the president let them refer major proposals that were not in msnefestos or that break election pledges to referendum on presidents absoloutr discretion. There u have a major check on govt without need for an extra 60unelected politicos and the cost of keeping them
The Shinners probably want gun men representatives in the chamber.
I spent months being lambasted on this site for telling you over and over again they would not give you real reform and you were being duped. This is a case where I hate to have been right.
I told you a second chamber can only be one of two things a source of deadlock or rubber stamp as all the proposals show. I told you everybody has their own vision of what reform looks like and all those visions contradict each other. Most importantly I told you that it’s not in the nature of any power structure in this case the government to hand over a potential barrier 2 or limit of its own power. The government would have been crazy from a political perspective to create a radically reformed senate that could be controlled by the opposition and cause US style gridlock, it was never going to happen.
Go back and look up what I said hear me now quote me later.. I told you they would do some tinkering with the university seats and call that reform because it does not require a referendum.
All you did by voting no, and noamount of thumbs down will change this fact, was give the people who you reject in 2016 a six figure salary and seat in Parliament anyway. Senate reforms a mirage and a distraction from the real changes that are needed in our political system.
labour party and fg will be thankful the seanad will be there for the seat losers to have some were to go after next election
I think the important point in this bill – which isn’t referred to above – is that the election of the bulk of senators will be opened up to the general electorate.
In other words, we can get to choose who is elected to the vocational panels – ie Education, Commerce, etc.
It mightn’t be total reform – you would need a referendum to go further – but it’s a step in the right direction….
Don’t be so naive this issue will fall off the radar and never be heard from again the senate is still with these changes a toothless rubber stamp that can’t block bills and if it could that would cause gridlock, there’s no way to win on this issue. So what if the public has vague input kinda sorta…u really think vocational experts will come out of this? PFF it will b the same tired old Greg suits as always. Besides we already have a chamber we elect properly so why would we need another one. The objective of the political establishment here is to tinker around the edges enough to shut reformers up all while avoiding real change and they’re all falling for it.
The Irish electorate always claim to not trust their political leaders but time after time they swollow their horse s1hit and say how tasty it is.
Can FF not accept the verdict of the electorate who voted to keep it as it is?
That is an absolutely false statement, Mark.
The public voted on it’s abolishment and were not given a reform option.
Having said that I don’t see much reform in the FF proposal. More like window dressing.
FF sat there for 15 years without reforming it as reform reports piled up. It can’t b reformed everyone has their own ideas and a consensus is not possible cos those ideas are so different.
I wish the electorate would forget what they learned in civics and CSPE and focus on how real world politics works. The kinda change most want.,a mirror of the fail with some differences around the edges would b expecting the govt to hand over a barrier to their own power..they won’t..FF don’t want such a limit when they’re in next time either which is why their proposals not serious. They want their bills to sail thru nice and quick without backbenchers offering ammrendments and picking them apart.
The big reforms we need are around election financing and the presidency this is a distraction.
Michael, I don’t see how my statement is absolutely false. The choice was to either abolish the Seanad or not. People chose not to abolish it – thereby maintaining the status quo.
One of the most important issues we have to resolve hasn’t even been discussed by our politicians while all this ‘He said this, I said that ‘ stuff is going on here, 90,000 homes need to be built , what scares me now are the salivating solicitors who’ll get millions while the homes remain unbuilt …
That’s a competitive category in Leinster House
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