February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
By Andrew Bushe
DUBLIN — The tightly knit community on Inishbofin, off County Galway, are in a state of shock after fire engulfed a house on the island killing three elderly sisters, two of them home on holiday from Britain.
The three were named by Gardai as Eileen Coyne, 81, a widow who lived locally, Brigid McFadden, 79, and Margaret Concannon, 72.
McFadden has two daughters and a son living in England. Three brothers of the dead women live on the island, another brother lives in Staten Island and a sister lives on nearby Clare Island.
The fire broke out in the two-story house close to the island’s harbor shortly after 2 a.m. on Tuesday and neighbors used fire extinguishers from homes, hotels, guesthouse and the church and buckets of water to try to fight the blaze.
The island, eight miles of the coast, has no fire-fighting service of its own. The local development association has been campaigning for fire-fighting equipment since 1978.
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Thick smoke hampered efforts to rescue the three sisters. Two of the bodies were found near the back door and one was at the bottom of the stairs. All are believed to have been overcome by smoke and fumes before they could escape.
Fire service personnel and Gardai from Galway, Cleggan and Clifden raced to the island, which is a 40-minute boat journey from the north Connemara coast.
Fr. Declan Carroll said there was an atmosphere of shock in the community with everybody numbed by the tragedy.
When he was alerted he had brought two fire extinguishers from the church and he backed calls for some kind of mobile unit to fight fires on the island, which has 75 homes.
"The intense smoke and fire beat us back," he said. "We just had to stand back and see the house go up in smoke. Words just can’t express how we feel because of the helplessness that was attached to the whole scenario."
He said two sisters were home on holiday to visit their widowed sister.
"They were due to return at the end of this week," he said. "One is married in England with three in the family. I have been talking to some of the family, both in England and in America, and words can’t express when you have to break bad news to them."
Garda Superintendent Michael Curley of Clifden said there had been intense smoke in the house when the alarm was raised. He paid tribute to the efforts of local people
"They did the best they could in the circumstances," he said. "It is a small island and a very, very close-knit community and I suppose you could call everyone on the island members of the same family. Everybody is in deep shock as a result of what has happened."
Development Association secretary Joanne Elliot, who joined about 50 people trying to get the three women out, said it was "terrible" to be on the scene and be able to do so little.
She said there had been also been fires in homes on the island in 1978 and about seven years ago and the association had asked Galway County Council for equipment. She believed two of the three women could have been saved if they had adequate rescue equipment.
"But we all stood around helpless because nobody could get close to get through the smoke and all," she said. "It was really terrible. There was a whole crowd of us standing outside and just watching and there was nothing anybody could do."
A fire hydrant about 100 feet from the tragedy was used by firemen from the mainland when they arrived, but local people had no hose to connect to it.