Tributes have been paid to Padraic Dillane, coxswain of the Aran Islands lifeboat, who has died after a short illness. During his long career as a lifeboat volunteer, he brought many sick people to hospital, but his last journey to shore after he was taken ill was by Irish Coast Guard helicopter.
A father of four, he had been coxswain for 12 years and a voluntary crew member for 20 years. He was decorated twice by the Royal National Life-Boat Institution (RNLI) headquarters, in Poole, Dorset, for his part in the rescue of 21 crew after a Dutch factory ship was grounded off the Galway coast in 1986, and for the rescue of two divers off Doolin, Co Clare, in 1989.
The Aran Islands lifeboat, formerly known as the Galway Bay station, is one of the busiest around the coast, with a large number of medical evacuations from the islands every year.
Several years ago Mr Dillane delivered the new Severn Class lifeboat to the station. Many people - not just those caught in accidents at sea - owe their lives to him, and it was a measure of the respect in which he was held that the Irish Coast Guard Sikorsky helicopter should perform a fly-past when his funeral cortege last week moved from the church to the graveyard on Inis Mor.
Mr Colin Williams, divisional inspector for the RNLI in Ireland, said Mr Dillane was "tremendously dedicated" to the work of the lifeboat station. He was a fine seaman, he said, and he hoped that others would be inspired by him.
Mr Dillane is survived by his wife, Marion, and by four sons, Padraig Eanna, Mairtin, Aonghus and Liam. Three of the four are currently with the lifeboat as voluntary crew, with the youngest, at 15, only ashore due to his age.