A coroner has paid tribute to the emergency services for their efforts in recovering the body of a 27-year-old climber who died after falling while climbing cliffs in west Cork last year.
Cork County coroner Frank O’Connell said that volunteer diver John Kearney and members of the Baltimore RNLI and Irish Coast Guard were to be commended for their work in recovering the body of UCC PhD student Lorenzo de Bonis from the sea in Baltimore.
“Many people put themselves in the way of danger to recover the body of Mr de Bonis as a storm was coming in ... very often rescue and recovery operations are carried on in very difficult circumstances and with a loss at sea, there is no guarantee somebody will be recovered,” said O’Connell.
The coroner was speaking after returning a verdict of accidental death in the case of the climber from Rome. De Bonis suffered traumatic head injuries, including a skull fracture and a broken neck after falling while climbing cliffs at Baltimore Hill in west Cork on September 4th, 2025.
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De Bonis’s partner, Signe Martin, told the inquest her partner had been climbing for 10 years and while he often climbed with the Cork Climbing Club, he also climbed on his own.
She said that on the day in question, he had decided to leave their home in Blackpool, Cork city and go climbing in Baltimore . He asked her if she wanted to come with him but she had a meeting so he headed off on his own.
“The line Lorenzo had planned to climb would have been too difficult for me. I would have just been there to watch,” said Martin.
She told how she rang de Bonis at 7pm and when she got no response and went to text him on WhatsApp, she noticed he had last been online at 12.39pm and she became worried.
She texted their friend Georgio Giunta and he collected her to drive to Baltimore. In the meantime, she rang a woman they knew in Baltimore, who contacted Gerard O’Driscoll, the owner of the farm where de Bonis had parked his car, and he said the car was still there.
Martin told how she contacted the emergency services and a search operation was launched. They were waiting for news at O’Driscoll’s house when gardaí returned with de Bonis’s bag and equipment. They noticed his harness and rope were missing.
O’Driscoll told how he met de Bonis at about 12.15pm on September 4th after he parked his car to walk to the cliffs. He recognised him from previous trips and when he remarked he was on his own, de Bonis said he would be okay and O’Driscoll said: “Make sure you get back.”
Kearney, a former Naval Service diver, told how he became aware de Bonis was missing on September 4th, so the following morning he assembled a volunteer crew for a search boat to assist the search and they contacted Baltimore RNLI and Valentia Coast Guard.
They travelled to the Eastern Hole Bay and swam at a depth of 5-6m into a narrow gully, where the water was surging and churning. He spotted the body of a man 5m down, lying face up with his harness and a lot of rope attached.
He used the harness to pull the casualty out of the gully and the Baltimore Lifeboat took the casualty on board. “The casualty looked like he had a gash on the back of his head,” said Kearney.
Assistant State Pathologist Dr Margot Bolster said de Bonis had suffered fractures to both the right and left side of his skull and a broken neck, all consistent with a fall from a height and he would have lost consciousness immediately.
The coroner said they would never know whether de Bonis lost his footing before he began abseiling down the cliff or whether it happened once he had begun his descent, but he returned a verdict of accidental death before extending his sympathies to his family and his partner.
