The only photo of me with my parents... three days later my dad was lost at sea

WHEN all you have to remember your dad is a single photograph, that one item becomes so precious.

The happy family picture here shows Tomás O’Cathain, his wife Eibhlín, and their new baby girl, Neillí.

It was taken on Tuesday, August 10, 1976, by Cork photographer Liam Mulcahy, who was on an assignment to record people on the Great Blasket Island in Kerry with Evening Echo journalist Walter McGrath.

Just three days later, Tomás, 38, was lost at sea in a presumed fishing accident. Sadly, Neillí, who was three months old, never got to know her father.

Neillí and her mother Eibhlín, who is originally from Cork, have treasured that sole photo of their family outside their home on the Great Blasket Island ever since.

“I got 100 copies of that photograph printed up for Tomás’s memorial card - that’s how important that picture was,” recalls Eibhlín.

It was also published in the Echo as the search for Tomás got underway, but his body was never recovered.

At the time, the O’Cathains were living on the mainland of Dún Chaoin, but would reside for the entire summer season in the Great Blasket Island cottage. When Neillí was born, she was the only baby on the island.

Tomás had written his name on a wall in the cottage, which he used as a staging post for his fishing expeditions.

“The day we brought Neillí in, she was two months old and I wrote her name ‘Nellie Beag’ under his and the date 1/7/76 in Mary Quant lipstick, which is all I had with me,” recalls Eibhlín.

Just over a month later, Tomás was gone.

“I stopped wearing lipstick then,” said Eibhlín, while showing me the writing on the wall for an RTÉ Nationwide programme in 2014.

Originally of Botanic Road, Ballyphehane, she is the daughter of the late Frank Gleeson, who was a compositor on the Echo and Examiner.

As for Neillí, she has grown up thankful that the Echo had a reporter and photographer on the Blaskets that day to capture the happy picture.

The photograph was “just there” when Neillí was young, but now she loves it and really appreciates having it.

Photographer Liam also took a snap that day of Neillí with journalist Walter - who went on to be the editor of the Holly Bough for more than 20 years.

Walter had been leading a Cork Historical and Archaeological Society tour on the island and Liam had been assigned to take pictures of their field trip. It was a pure fluke that Liam and the group ended up chatting to Tomás and Eibhlín that day, and took the photos.

Tomás disappeared on a rubber dinghy crossing the treacherous Blasket Sound on Friday, August 13, 1976, at 10.45pm. He and a friend, Michael Sheeran, from Meath, had spent the day on the mainland, and used the dinghy when their currach broke down.

Its engine stalled 100 yards from the Great Blasket and began to drift seaward. Mr Sheeran swam to shore to raise the alarm, but Tomás stayed in the dinghy and was not seen again.

The dinghy was found empty 30 miles away the next day, and there was speculation Tomás may have fallen off when he tried to restart the engine. Local people launched a fund for the young widow and her baby.

Tomás had an old naomhóg at Dún Chaoin, but it rotted away over the years so, in 2006, Neillí commissioned a new one in his memory. It was built by Eddie Hutchinson and Christí MacGearailt and a group of young people learning the skills of boat building.

Neillí’s grandfather - Tomas’s father - had a naomhóg which had been stored on the first stáitse, or stand, at the harbour, which was a position of pride in those days. Today the naomhóg built in memory of Tomás is the only one down at Dún Chaoin.

“At the launch, there was a party and there were musicians at Tigh Mhéiní, it was a great occasion and I could imagine being there when all the old people were living there,” Neillí says.

On a glorious day in 2014, Eibhlín and Neillí brought us over to the Great Blasket for Nationwide, on which I am a reporter. Visitors wandered around the old houses while Neillí and her Indian-born husband Pankaj looked after their two small children.

Sophia is now 14 and Seán is 11. “They haven’t yet got to the age where they appreciate the significance of the house,” says Neillí. “You have this amazing thing here and you can sit and look at it and (the history) goes back for years, but no, they wanted to go to the beach!”

Pankaj is delighted to have become acquainted with the heritage of the island life - he himself is from the city of Karnal, about three hours’ drive from New Delhi.

And Neillí herself loves that her children have two very rich and distinct histories from which to draw as they get older.

The Great Blasket was abandoned in 1953 when the last 22 islanders left for good. At its height, 176 people lived there in 1916, but one by one the families left for America, sending back money for more family to join them, mostly in Springfield, Massachusetts .

Eibhlín uses the house on the Great Blasket as a summer retreat. It was built in 1934 by Eoghain Dunleavy, stepson of the island’s famous nurse Méiní Dunleavy. She was Tomás’ grand aunt and her story was told in the book Méiní by Leslie Matson in 1995. It has just been reprinted by Mercier Press.

With the bad summer just gone, Eibhlín didn’t get out to the island much this year, but in 2022 she painted ‘Tigh Eoghain’ and spent time in the company of the seals down on the shore.

“I find great peace there “ says Eibhlín.

“Braithim aga baile. Sásta agus uaigneach ag an am céanna. Braithim uaim Tomás mar is ann a bhíomar lena chéile don uair dheireannach sara a tharla an óspairt tragóideach. Sásta mar thuigeann leanaí ár n-iníne Sophia agus Seán an tabhacht a bhaineann lena n-oidhreacht agus an saibhreas a bhaineann lena sinsear. Uaigneach chomh maith go bhfuil an t-Oileán tréigthe ach sásta go bhfuil meas ag daoine ar an Oileán agus na daoine stuama a mhair ann.”

(“I feel at home there. Happy and sad at the same time. I miss Tomás when I am there because it was the last place we were together before his tragic accident. Happy that our daughter’s children, Sophia and Seán, understand the importance of their rich heritage of their ancestors. Sad now that the island is abandoned but happy that people nowadays are interested in the island and the history of its proud people.”)

As we left the island in 2014, I asked Eibhlín what her hopes were for her family connection with Great Blasket house.

“I’d like the family to continue to look after it, come and fish here,” she said, “and preserve the language and all the heritage of their grandfather and the people before them.”