When 41-year-old Irish Coast Guard Caitríona Lucas died on September 12th this year, Ireland mourned. Hers marked the first occasion on record of an Irish Coast Guard volunteer dying during a rescue operation.
Caitríona and two colleagues were on board a rescue boat that capsized at sea in Kilkee while they were searching for a missing Clare schoolteacher.
As an island nation, something about a death at sea affects us in a very primal way. Flags were flown at half mast in remembrance and commemoration of the death of an incredible woman, who had lost her life whilst engaged in such a selfless act.
But with Caitríona’s death, no-one was affected more so than her own family. This morning, less than two months after the tragedy, her husband, Bernard, spoke movingly about his wife’s legacy and paid tribute to the work of the Irish Coast Guard on Today with Sean O’Rourke.
“She was more than my wife; she was my best friend. We grew up together.”
They had been together since Caitríona was 17. They married young and had two children, Ben (20) and Emma (18). Bernard joined the coast guard as a volunteer in 2002; Caitríona followed in 2004.
“We both really loved the outdoors and stuff like that: boats and water and climbing. So it was a natural progression, helping people, and if you can give something back to your community, what better can you do?”
The Lucas’s were always seafaring people, living by the Clare coast. It was the combination of being able to rescue via boat, climbing and land-search that drew Caitríona and Bernard to volunteer for the coast guard.
In the days after her death, Mattie Shannon, the officer in charge of the Doolin Coast Guard unit, told Sean O’Rourke that Caitríona loved the coast guard; it was what she wanted to do. Bernard agreed:
“Yes, it is. It’s about giving back to the community, it’s about helping people, and that’s what she wanted to do. … You have to see the sadness in someone’s eyes if you can’t find a loved one for them, and when you see that, you will do absolutely anything to try and help the next person who comes along.”
Bernard and his children, Ben and Emma, are still “broken – absolutely in bits,” he told Sean. But the support of their community is getting them trough.
“She was very, very proud of the two kids, and it was heartbreaking for them, it really was. But they’re good, they’ve got great support from neighbours and friends.”
Emma is back in school, she’s in her Leaving Cert. Year, and Ben is back at work as an aircraft engineer in Shannon.
Clearly, helping is in the Lucas family’s blood, and Bernard is back on call for the Irish Coast Guard.
“It’s what we love doing. Caitríona loved it, we both loved it, so it’s what we did; it’s what I still do. There’s nothing better you can do than help your fellow person and the community; give something back.”
“I’m back on call-out; I’ve been on two or three, maybe four, since. We had one recently to a helicopter and that was tough, I really had to push myself to take the casualty into the stretcher because the last person I brought into the helicopter would have been Caitríona, so that was quite difficult, I found that traumatic… It was the same stretcher, in the same place in the helicopter.”
Bernard told Sean O’Rourke that the memories and the strength of their community are helping their family get through this incredibly difficult time. His tales of the family’s travels together and his wife’s energy and vibrancy clearly illustrate a life lived to the fullest, albeit cut tragically short.
Caitríona Lucas was, by all accounts, a truly amazing woman: a loving wife and mother, a humanitarian, an educator, a librarian, a central member of her community, an animal lover, an adventurer, and so much more. “A playful, creative spirit,” was how the priest described her at her funeral. Bernard agreed that it was a perfect description.
She was also a talented artist. So much so that there is now a campaign to have one of her paintings, depicting the Irish Coast Guard’s helicopter and boat, made into a stamp by An Post.
“This might sound like an inappropriate question, forgive me if it is,” said Sean to Bernard, “but is there anything that she failed at?” he asked.
Bernard paused for thought.
“No,” he answered, truthfully, before agreeing with Sean that Caitríona continues to inspire and sustain him, even after her untimely death.
