Tears are still being shed in a tiny village in north-west Mayo which is suffering the collective loss of two of its men after a freak accident. Their grief will continue and the names of the dead will be remembered.
This is a peculiarly rural tale. Last Tuesday week three men left their homes in Glengad to go out "lamping" after foxes - a pastime as natural and harmless to them as going out to the cinema would be for city-dwellers. They spotted a fox and followed it along the shoreline, driving their car down to a small pier to get a better shot at it.
Pat Docherty (38) remained in the back seat of the wine-coloured Ford Sierra while Wesley Henry (20) and Declan Sweeney (34) stepped out on the slippery concrete. Suddenly the car began to move: Wesley jumped back inside and tried to grab the handbrake, Declan gripped the towbar, but the car slipped into the pitch-black water of Sruwaddacon bay.
Somehow, Wesley struggled through the treacherous current to shore, but Pat was trapped inside the car. Declan, like Pat, couldn't swim but must have reasoned with himself that any chance to save his friend was worth the risk. He jumped into the water. It was all over in a matter of minutes. By the time the alarm was raised, both men had been swept away. Pat's body was discovered a few hours later, washed up nearby. It would be four more days before Declan's body was found.
McGrath's pub at the end of Pollatomish pier was transformed into a search headquarters, where endless tea and sandwiches were dispensed to the hundreds of oilskin-clad volunteers, amateur and Garda divers. For five days headlights punctured the misty dawn stillness as people converged to wage an ancient struggle with a sea unwilling to yield up Declan's body. Men and women worked for hours hauling nets and trawling the bay with home-made grapple hooks.
Remote area
Erris is among the most remote areas on the west coast and the search of the mile-wide estuary was hampered by the lack of communications. Pollatomish and the surrounding villages are mobile phone blackspots - part of the five per cent of territory Eircell and Digifone are permitted by law to ignore. It required a 12-mile round trip just to bring fuel for the currachs and special dinghys used in the search.
Whole communities lined the shore during the search and the emotional peaks and troughs were palpable: the anxious anticipation every time the divers seemed to have found something, the tears that invariably followed. There were muttered exhortations to a merciful God as well as the laughter induced by whispered anecdotes about the two men, who were an integral part of the local fabric.
Inevitably, initial optimism turned to desperation. Diviners and psychics were called in to locate Declan's body; a jumper belonging to him was tossed into the sea in the belief it would go to its owner; a sheaf of hay was even flung from the pier because of an old saying that it would migrate to the body. Such superstitions mingled easily with more widespread mantras of hope and consolation such as the rosary, which was recited countless times by helpless onlookers.
Small holdings
The village of Glengad is squeezed between Broadhaven Bay and a hill that blocks out the sun for fully three months of the year. An achingly beautiful place, it comprises a clutter of small holdings where sheep graze on harsh slopes. It is a world where time is passed in the company of neighbours and where house-visiting is a way of life. In an area that has suffered more than most from emigration, "locals" are to be found in Boston, Chicago and all over England. As one teenager remarked as he looked at the throngs on the shore: "Around here we're all the one anyway. We're all family one way or another."
Pat Docherty, a father of four, was originally from the Gaeltacht village of Ceathru Thaidhg, across Broadhaven Bay. He seemed to spend a good part of his life on board his tractor - usually with his wife, Winnie, in tow, and helped many a van and car out of a boggy field or ditch. A portly man with a great sense of humour, he was well accustomed to the good-natured jibes about his ample belly. "It took money to put that there," was his stock retort to his detractors.
Declan Sweeney, the second youngest of nine brothers, never drank or smoked. He could put his hand to almost anything and it would not be unusual for him to arrive at a door late at night ready to begin work after attending to his chores on the family farm. He was in constant demand for rewiring houses, putting in central heating, fixing washing machines and other appliances or machinery. There is hardly a house in the area that does not have the marks of his handiwork.
Like all handymen, he was notoriously difficult to find when you wanted him. So in death, more than one local was heard to remark looking out at the bay that it would ironic if he were to change now.
Swirling current
The dreary search was punctuated by moments of hope. On Thursday an amateur diver rose to the surface, signalling that he had seen Declan's body. Thank God, we thought, it's over at last; but our agony was to continue. Despite frantic combing of the immediate area, the swirling current had played another card and he was gone again. It would be another four days before he would washed up on his own land.
Pat's funeral cortege stretched for miles from Inver church, past his house and ultimately to his final resting-place at Pullathomas cemetery. It halted at his home and again at the place where he met his death. The divers continued their search for Declan even as Pat was being buried in the graveyard overlooking the place where they both perished. Declan's funeral was last Wednesday. They are together again once more, buried side by side. Friends in life and in death.