It was cold, windy, rain fell occasionally, there was a persistent sea mist, altogether it was more like winter than summer at the mouth of Castletownbere harbour on the Beara Peninsula in west Cork as I stood on the stern of the local lifeboat, as she rose and fell in the trough.

I watched the clergy from Castletownbere and the members of Mna na Mara, the 'Women of the Sea' organisation, pray and cast a wreath on the waters at the harbour entrance to remember fishermen and others from the community who had died.