Cork Coasts; 'I nearly drowned, so I decided to join RNLI'

A TOWN synonymous with sailing and fishing, as well as being a bustling maritime and tourism hub, it might surprise you to learn that the Kinsale RNLI station is only 21 years old.

Among those involved with it is Hetty Walsh, a Deputy Launch Authority (DLA), who has been involved in the lifeboats for 15 years. Her motivation for joining was born out of her own scary experience.

“One of the reasons I joined was because I almost drowned,” said Hetty. “I got trapped underneath a boat when I was in Greece. There was no back-up. It was with a sun sail company, so the rescue boat was two miles out.

“I had to defend myself and literally climb under the boat with my life-jacket on. It was very difficult because when your life-jacket’s on, it pulls you back up into the middle of the boat.

I took one last breath, dived down, and I said to myself that when I get back to Ireland, because I’m a sailor, I want to donate some time to rescuing people.

Since Hetty joined Kinsale RNLI in 2008, she has been involved in training volunteers.

“We need one another in order to support one another,” she said. “Every person has their role and when everyone does their role then things run smoothly.

“When you have people joining the RNLI, newcomers, they have to be trained in. When people come to join the RNLI, we train them as much as we can.

“We do the exercises and then they get assessed after that. Both crew, shore crew and the launch authority, we all need one another. We can’t work separately. It’s about team.” Hetty said.

For lifeboat crew member at Kinsale RNLI, Olivia Keating, a brush with death had a similar effect and led her down the altruistic path as well.

Olivia is an avid recreational sea swimmer, kayaker and water enthusiast in general. She is also a keen runner and cyclist.

It was after a major accident in her own life that she experienced, first-hand, how it is to have your life saved by a selfless volunteer.

One day in 2016, as Olivia cycled through the village of Ballinascarthy, she was the victim of a hit and run accident. She was left fighting for her life alone on the side of the road, having received life-threatening body and brain injuries.

Olivia was within minutes of losing her life when she was attended by a CUH doctor who volunteers his time with West Cork Rapid Response.

“There were two doctors on their way to work just by chance who came to my assistance, the ambulance crew came to my assistance, but I was so severe they needed to get the critical care doctor who worked with West Cork Rapid Response” Olivia recalls.

Without him doing what he needed to do - ten, 15 minutes - I would have been gone.

What followed for Olivia was a two-and-a-half-year recovery, including many months at the National Rehabilitation Hospital in Dún Laoghaire. During her time there, she was assisted many times by volunteers from the NRH.

“During my time in hospital, I had a lot of volunteers come and help me and it made me think a little differently about, you know; you’ve got a second chance at life, see now can you help someone.” Olivia said.

How has Olivia’s traumatic experience and subsequent recovery informed her time as an RNLI volunteer?

“ I think just even, like, something simple like compassion towards that casualty, I know exactly that they would be so relieved to see somebody come along to help them, no matter who it is.

You know, if you’re out there, and you’re struggling in the water, whether it’s on a boat, or you’re in a kayak, or you’re swimming, and to see help coming along... and to know that there’s somebody there for you.

Kinsale RNLI was formed in 2003 after a public campaign. For six years, the service and its volunteers functioned without a station house until 2009, during which time the lifeboat was housed temporarily by Kinsale Yacht Club.

The type of lifeboat in the town - The Miss Sally Anne (Baggy) II - is the same style of rib available to the RNLI teams at Union Hall, while the lifeboats at Baltimore and Courtmacsherry are all-weather vessels.

Not all stations will need an all-weather lifeboat, and it is usually the Coast Guard that authorises the RNLI to dispatch to a scene and will decide which vessel and station is required to attend a given call.

Kevin Gould, who has volunteered at Kinsale since its establishment in 2003, and who is a carpenter by trade, told me about those early days, and what it meant for the town to finally have a functional lifeboat.

“We were provided with temporary accommodation on the grounds of the Kinsale Yacht Club, which was very kind of them,” he said.

 “And for that period, we had containers. And our boat, which was our first boat, was moored on the marina.

She was outside all of the time and it did take a bit of extra work because we would have to clean the boat every Saturday morning because she’s not meant to be outside all of the time.

“So that continued until September, 2009. The station that we’re sitting in at the moment was officially opened. And so we’ve been here ever since,” Mr Gould explained.

In his time at the Kinsale RNLI, Kevin has had various roles.

“I started off as shore crew. And then I became a DLA, which means you have the authority to launch or not to launch the boat, to give permission.

“So, that lasted until 2017. I was asked if I would become the Lifeboat Operations Manager (LOM). I did so on the condition that I wanted to do it for one year. And here I am in 2024, and I’m still the LOM.

“So, the station, not the actual building, has been in existence for over 20 years now, I’m glad to say,” added Kevin.

The motto of the RNLI is to save lives at sea. So therefore, that’s the reason that it exists, or any lifeboat station exists.

“At the time when the station was built, I felt very proud of that. It isn’t every day that the RNLI will decide to build a station anywhere because it is a big deal.

“I remember thinking to myself at the time that we were only in existence six years, and the powers-that-be in the headquarters in Dorset in England deemed that we were worthy of a new building. I thought it was a real feather in our cap ,that we must have done something right, because it’s not very often that new stations are built anywhere.”

Kinsale has about 50 volunteers between operations, shore, crew and fundraising. The figure is never really set in stone because people come and go, particularly in a place like Kinsale.

“A town like this has a very transient population, people do come and go here a lot, and you could say the same houses are sold over and over again,” said Kevin.

“That has been a problem. And the high cost of rents has cost us a few crew. They couldn’t afford to live in the town.

But we have sufficient numbers, and we always have had, and hopefully we always will. But I would never foresee a situation where we’d have a waiting list.

In meeting some of the Cork-based lifeboat volunteers in this series, it is evident that the average RNLI member holds a healthy balance of personal resilience and compassion within themselves that becomes placed unto others in a time of need. The experiences of Hetty and Olivier are examples of this.

These are selfless traits that are surely echoed among the volunteers from the 46 Irish lifeboat stations; 42 of which are coastal, and four that are situated at inland lakes.

TOMORROW: Our RNLI series continues as we head to Youghal.