14/08/2012

Body Recovered By RNLI Off Cork Coast

The body of a man in his 60s has been recovered from the sea early this morning off west Cork following a major search co-ordinated by the Irish Coast Guard.

The body was recovered by Castletownbere lifeboat at around 1.30am off Cod's Head between Allihies and Eyries on the Beara Peninsula.

The victim, who has been named locally as John O'Leary from Barness in Allihies, was out on a small boat with his son, Christopher (18), when the boat overturned.

The two spent around four hours clinging to the upturned boat before they began swimming to the shore with the son taking around an hour to reach land.

He raised the alarm, and the Coast Guard based at Valentia began a major search at about 9pm last night in the Cod's Head area of Kenmare Bay.

The Castletownbere RNLI boat, Annette Hutton, was launched and went to the scene, while Coast Guard teams began a search of the coastline for the missing man. A Coast Guard Sikorksy helicopter was dispatched from Shannon and carried out a sweep of the area.

The remains of the man were brought ashore by Castletownbere lifeboat and brought to Cork University Hospital where a postmortem will be carried out later today.

(H)


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