The tragic deaths of two Bessbrook teachers while on a school trip in Donegal forty years ago, will be remembered later this week at a poignant service to be held close to the site where the tragedy occurred.
Pius McParland (26) and 22-year-old Francis Crilly were art and design teachers at St. Paul’s High School when they died in a drowning accident at Bloody Foreland in March 1978. The men were on an Easter Monday visit to the Donegal Gaeltacht area with four other teachers and a group of students when they went to take photographs at the spectacular coastline tourist spot, known locally as Cnoc Fola. Concern was raised when they did not return that evening and the tragic events unfolded when a local farmer raised the alarm after noticing their green Saab car parked at the headland.
Two days after they went missing, a local man discovered Mr McParland’s body in the water. However, a further two days passed before Mr Crilly’s remains were recovered, having been washed up on the beach at nearby Brinaleck.
This Thursday (5th April), relatives, friends and colleagues of the two men will travel to Donegal where a special remembrance Mass and wreath-laying service is planned.
Mass will be celebrated at 2.00pm in the Church of St Colmcille, Bloody Foreland and afterwards flowers will be laid at the granite memorial at the site, which was erected on Easter Monday 1979 in memory of the teachers, to mark the first anniversary of their deaths.
Former vice-principal of St Paul’s High School, Anne O’Connor, will be among those attending the event. Having taken up her post in September 1978, six months after the tragic drownings, Mrs O’Connor recalled that staff had always been very appreciative of the assistance they had received from the people of Donegal in the aftermath of the tragedy. Everyone is invited to join the families and friends of Mr McParland and Mr Crilly at Thursday’s event, she added.
