As part of an Ecumenical Service of Thanksgiving for the Lough Derg Yacht Club Regatta at Kilodiernan Church in Puckane yesterday, the Nenagh Union of Parishes included a celebration of the RNLIs 200 years of lifesaving, and Lough Derg RNLIs 20 years of service.
Rev. Keith Barry invited Fr Willie McCormack to concelebrate the service, which included RNLI volunteers, sailors and parishioners amongst the congregation.
Dr. John Killeen, Chairperson of the RNLI Council in Ireland and an RNLI Trustee, gave an address that included an account of the work of the charity during its long history. He celebrated the volunteer spirit and the ‘one crew’ ethos, both on and off the water. He gave a profoundly moving description of the contact, hand to hand, of a lifeboat crew reaching down to save a person from the water.
The Lough Derg Yacht Club Social Singers, many of whom are also volunteers with Lough Derg RNLI, performed Home from the Sea, an RNLI anthem written by Phil Coulter. Eleanor Hooker, Helm and Lifeboat Press Officer at Lough Derg RNLI, read her poem ‘Float to Live’, which was commissioned for the RNLI’s bicentenary year celebrations.
Following the service, Niamh McCutcheon, Chairperson of Lough Derg RNLI Fundraising Committee said she was ‘delighted to see the wonderful support for the RNLI it this commemorative year for the charity and an important birthday for Lough Derg RNLI’.
