The date was June 24th, 1985, the day after the Air India disaster, when a terrorist bomb blew up a 747 jumbo jet in Irish airspace off the coast of West Cork, killing all 329 people on board. A wannabe journalist, straight out of college and working in the shambolic newsroom of a local pirate radio station, I had been sent by the head of news to report from Cork airport for the six o’clock evening bulletin. When I arrived at the normally sleepy airport terminal, lugging my enormous and ungainly tape recorder, I could hardly believe my eyes. Teams of army and navy personnel, security men and ambulance staff jostled with large crowds of reporters from news channels and papers throughout the world.
Amid the throng, I spied Nell McCafferty, small in stature but definitely not in personality, instantly recognisable from the telly with her head of bushy grey hair. While the other reporters ran around in a tizzy, she stood and surveyed the scene coolly, her hands in the pockets of her jeans.
I was awe struck – I had grown up reading her brilliant series of court reports, In the Eyes of the Law, in The Irish Times, and in our house we regularly used her wry TV sign-off phrase: “Goodnight, Sisters” among ourselves, with a roll of our eyes, in response to some particularly egregious instance of chauvinism that had been brought to our attention.
I somehow made myself walk over to her and introduce myself. Sensing I was slightly at a loss in this melee, Nell was kind enough to take the greenhorn under her wing. She had heard that some of the media were being taken out on helicopters to survey and photograph the crash scene.
“Hello there,” she greeted the security officer. “How are ya?” The man in the high-vis vest instantly recognised the face. “Ah, ’tis yourself, Nell.”
“Listen, I was wondering is there any chance you could get me and the wee girl here out on one of the choppers?” The man in the high-vis vest looked dubious. “Oh,” he said, shaking his head, “I don’t know. I don’t think so.”
Nell waited a few moments and then tried another tack. “Did anyone ever tell you you’re the image of Jack Nicholson?” she said flirtatiously. She turned to me, standing meekly beside her. “Isn’t he the head off Jack Nicholson?”
I couldn’t see the resemblance myself, but I wasn’t about to argue.
The crash site was 190km off the coast of Mizen, where Irish Naval Service crewmen, assisted by RAF and Royal Naval helicopters as well as merchant ships and fishing trawlers, were searching for bodies that could be returned to the victims’ relatives. Nell was doing her best to get us right to the grim heart of the action.
On this rare occasion, even Nell’s charm couldn’t prevail and I, at least, never got out on the helicopter. In truth, though of course I didn’t say this to Nell, I was partly relieved. I left and went about finding others to talk to and filed my report by phone from the airport. I never met Nell afterwards, either, or got a chance to thank her, though I was lucky enough to share one space – the list of contributors’ in Hot Press magazine – with her (and many others) in the late 1980s and early 1990s.
The incident showed me that kindness and humour can survive in the bleakest of circumstances. Air India flight 182 was on its way from Toronto via Montreal to London and New Delhi, and the majority of the passengers were Canadians of Indian descent. The main suspects in the bombing were members of the Sikh militant group Babbar Khalsa. After a fraught investigation that lasted almost 20 years, in 2003 Inderjit Singh Reyat, a Canadian national, was sentenced to 15 years in prison for building the bomb that exploded aboard Flight 182 and another that went off prematurely at Narita airport in Tokyo and killed two baggage handlers. He was freed in February last year.
In 2010, a report by a commission of inquiry found the victims’ families had been left in a limbo by the Canadian government, and had “often been treated as adversaries, as if they had somehow brought this calamity upon themselves”. After 25 years, the prime minister of the day, Stephen Harper, issued an apology on behalf of the government.
The local people in West Cork, as is their wont, showed great compassion to the bereaved relatives who arrived immediately after the disaster and some struck up friendships with them that have lasted over the decades.
Some of the families, seeking to find the nearest land point to where the plane disintegrated at 31,000 feet, discovered a site at Ahakista where a shoreline memorial garden was created, with a sundial made by Cork sculptor Ken Thompson. Every year since, on June 24th, in the garden, locals join relatives of the victims in remembering. The families float white balloons into the sky, and walk in silence. They recite the names of those they lost. This year, it’s the 40th anniversary. And, a little later this year, we will also remember Nell, who died on August 21st last year.
