The two men who lost their lives at sea last weekend off Glencolmcille in Donegal have been identified and it has emerged that they are believed to have been involved in another rescue mission this past month.
A post mortem will be carried out at Letterkenny University Hospital today on the bodies of the men who were Lithuanian nationals aged 56 and 40. They are believed to be friends who were on a fishing trip last Saturday (July 8th) when the incident occurred.
The 56-year-old man has been named locally as Rimantis Barauskas, a married man who lived in Oldcastle, Co Meath. His body washed ashore at Malinbeg yesterday morning and was discovered by a local farmer. The deceased was not wearing a lifejacket.
The body of his friend, who is from Co. Longford, was located in the water and recovered by the Bundoran Lifeboat. There was a lifejacket on the second body.
The five metre rigid inflatable boat (RIB) the men were sailing on has been identified as the same vessel which ran out of fuel in the same area four weeks ago. Four people had to be rescued from the boat at the time, which got into difficulty at same location as the weekend tragedy near Raithlin O’Beirne Island, off Malinbeg.
Shane McCrudden, deputy officer with the Killybegs Coast Guard told Independent.ie the people in last month’s incident were given a stern warning as two were without lifejackets.
He said the waters off Malinbeg and Glencolmcille are notoriously dangerous. Currents converge in the area of Rathlin O’Beirne Sound and create a strong sea.
The search operation on Sunday 9th July involved the services of the Rescue 118 from Sligo, Killybegs Coast Guard, Arranmore lifeboat, Bunbeg Coast Guard and Bundoran lifeboat.
Conditions were said to have been good at the time. The Irish Coast Guard is currently working to determine what happened to cause this latest tragedy.
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