A CO Donegal couple are making headlines in New Zealand today – after losing a diamond from an antique wedding ring!
That’s because local people in the town of Picton found the gem after rummaging through rubbish bins.
Tourists Moragh and Eamon Canney say they can’t thank the people of the New Zealand town enough for all their help.
The diamond was eventually found by Seamus’s Irish Bar owner Liz Hawthorne who got down on her hands and knees to find a diamond vacuumed into the bar’s rubbish bags.
The couple were in New Zealand visiting their son in Christchurch, decided to stay a night in Picton before returning home to Donegal.
The stone fell out of the 1930s ring after they went into the bar for a night-cap but only discovered it missing the next day.
The pair returned to the bar the next day more in hope than anything else.
But Mrs Hawthorne emptied the rubbish bags from the previous night and rummaged through – and found the precious stone.
“There were coffee grinds, cigarette butts – she went through the bottles one by one,” Mrs Canney said.
“I just couldn’t believe it — not just the work, but how kind she was. I will be forever grateful to Liz.”
The Canneys took the diamond to a local jewellers where owner Murray Brereton reset the claws on the ring that held the five diamonds in place while they waited.
“It was just fantastic, the people we met were so good to us.
“Those values where people have time for others, they were just unbelievable.”
“Liz went above and beyond the call of duty, I couldn’t thank her enough – it really saved our holiday.” said Moragh.
Brereton Jewellers owner Murray Brereton said the diamonds were not properly set into the claws by a previous jeweller.
Mrs Canney was “absolutely distressed” when she entered the shop but calmed down while watching Mr Brereton perform the work, he told the Marlborough Express.