Meitheal — The Story of a Search (RTÉ One, Tuesday) is a heartfelt film about a terrible event. In March 2017, the Irish Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 116 crashed off the Co Mayo coast. All four crew were lost. A subsequent Coast Guard investigation identified navigational issues as a major factor in the disaster, including the omission from the helicopter’s flight management system of Blackrock Island, with which it collided before entering the sea.
The crash and the circumstances leading to it remain in the background throughout this documentary by Fergus Sweeney (the son of a local lighthouse keeper — an interesting nugget that the film omits). Rather than revisit Rescue 116 in detail, this is instead a profile of the Erris Peninsula community who rallied around and did their bit to help recover the bodies of the crew. (Two have never been found.)
It is beautifully shot and captures the mournfulness of the Mayo coast, which is portrayed as harsh and unforgiving. “If we didn’t have the bridge to Belmullet we’d be an island,” says one local, Noel Cawley. “There are four lighthouses — that tells you how much danger is involved,” adds another resident, Pat Walker.
Meitheal sometimes tells rather than shows. “There are facets of life you go through that people don’t realise you have to in a place like this,” says one local. But these challenges are never described in detail. Perhaps it would have been helpful for the director to insert himself more fully into his story — to share his recollections of life on the peninsula and of the struggles he witnessed growing up.
Sweeney interviews various locals, who are bound together by the concept of “meitheal” — helping your neighbours through difficult times. Their contributions are not always scintillating. “You don’t expect a helicopter to crash into rocks,” says one. ‘It’s unthinkable.” The statement is sincere, but would Meitheal have suffered for its removal?
We finish with a charity cycle from Dublin to the peninsula that acknowledges the sacrifice of the four pilots. This is framed as a triumphant full stop, the narrator declaring that “the community had somehow rewrote their ending of the story”. It’s certainly an emotive final flourish.
Yet it is ultimately difficult to avoid the conclusion that Meitheal would have been better had it told us more about the crew of Rescue 116 and how they came to lose their lives in the cruel waters off the Mayo coast. That omission leaves a cold, empty place in the heart of a passionate film.
