On Arranmore Island off the coast of Donegal, three-week-old Paul Earley and 95-year-old Eddie Gallagher were the guests of honour at a party to celebrate the 175th anniversary of the RNLI. The youngest and oldest residents of the island both have good reason to support the lifeboat. Paul's mother, Ms Pat Earley, said it was thanks to the lifeboat that she was able to make it across stormy seas in the middle of the night three weeks ago to give birth at a mainland hospital.
"It is like a water ambulance. Just knowing it is there takes a weight off your mind," she said.
Her eldest daughter, Kayla, was also born in Letterkenny hospital after a high-speed trip in the lifeboat. She was celebrating her seventh birthday yesterday and cut the RNLI birthday cake with Mr Gallagher, who was coxswain on the Arranmore lifeboat for more than 40 years.
Champagne popped and a piper played Happy Birthday as about 150 islanders gathered in the lifeboat station at Poolawaddy. Apart from the coxswain and a mechanic, all 13 crew members are volunteers. Since 1986, 56 lives have been saved and there have been 324 launches. The Arranmore lifeboat also carries out emergency evacuations from Tory Island and the crew are getting a new £2 million boat early next year.
Mrs Nora Flanagan, a nurse, has been on the crew for the past four years. "It can be very, very wild. You say 20 decades of the Rosary and promise never to talk about your neighbours again. It is scary, but then I find it no more scary than driving around Dublin," she said.