This morning Mike "Black Ball" Harrington was found floating face down in the water, demonstrably not drowned, bruises on his head. His boat was sunk, but there was fishing gear flotsam and diesel on the water that lead them to his body.
https://www.thejournal.ie/fisherman-body-found-west-cork-7148722-Sep2026/
Mike started at SNG about a month before I did. At Christmas all was merry, but it coincided with Mike going down a path that I my opinion lead to Mike being terminated from SNG. He left the "9 to 5" and returned to earning a living from the deck of a boat. He seemed happy when I met him in town time to time, but today his body was found floating face down in the water.
Of the few people I knew in Castletown, he was one of the people I knew the best. We would chat over tea, we worked together; when he ran into trouble at work I voted that he be given a second, a third chance. Once he left SNG he seemed genuinely happy to be back on the water.
His name "Black Ball" was because his family lands were at Black Ball Head. He worked in New Zealand, first as a fisherman, then as a forester. He fished off the coast of Norway for a good two years. Then building in the UK and Ireland, before returning to Castletown to look after his elderly parents. So he told me.
Four Coast Guard jeeps attended the pier, and the story in the national press declined to mention him by name.
https://www.rte.ie/news/munster/2026/0901/1589933-castletownbere-cork/
Lunch and tea. Scones and coffee. He shared with me the the scallops he had caught. I don't know. Everyone dies eventually, but mid fifties seems too young. Of the few people I knew in Castletown, he was one of the people I knew the most. And now his body is in Cork (city) for autopsy.
I do not know. Life is short. And we are all passing through.