The wind tossed people's hair and sent the laments from a lone piper swirling into the grey skies as families from France and west Cork were yesterday united in grief in a lonely graveyard overlooking Bantry Bay.
Some 21 relatives of the 42 French victims of the Betelgeuse oil-tanker explosion joined relatives of seven west Cork victims to mark the 20th anniversary of the night their loved ones lost their lives on Whiddy Island off the west Cork coast.
Some 50 people, including an English cargo surveyor, died in the Bantry explosion and fire, and the tragedy claimed another life later in 1979 when a Dutch diving supervisor was killed while working on the salvage of the sunken oil tanker.
Canon Donal O'Callaghan told the mourners at a religious service in St Finbarr's Church in Bantry that he hoped time had helped to heal their grief. "But time doesn't kill memories, which is as well, because, in time, good memories would go as well as bad."
After the service the relatives were taken to Abbey Cemetery, on the outskirts of Bantry, where they wound their way up the hill to the granite cross which bears the names of those who died in Ireland's worst maritime disaster.
It was a steep climb and a climb often made with dread, noted the Rev Paul Willoughby, a Church of Ireland minister, as he invited a young French woman, Nolwenn Allegre (24), to read in French from Psalm 107: "Those who go down to the sea in ships."
Nolwenn and her brother, Meriadeg (20), lost their father, Loic, in the Betelgeuse inferno. As Loic's body was never recovered, yesterday's ceremony was particularly poignant for them and for their mother, Jeanne.
"It is my first time coming to Bantry", said Mrs Allegre, "and today's ceremony was very moving. The people of Bantry have been very kind and very warm and they have shown great solidarity with us."
For the retired Total Oil fleet manager, Comdt Loic Keraly, it was almost like returning home. He was flown into Bantry immediately after the explosion and spent two months liaising with the Irish authorities in its aftermath.
Now aged 71 and somewhat stooped, he strode out forcefully from the crowd to read the names of those who died and list their roles on board ship. "Second engineer, carpenter, galleyboy, baker's wife". His words resonated with a curiously innocent sadness.
After naming Englishman Mike Harris and Dutchman Jaap Pols, he turned to "our Irish friends" - Charlie Brennan, Tim Kingston, Denis O'Leary, Neilly O'Shea, Jimmy O'Sullivan, Liam Shan ahan and David Warner - who died on the Gulf Oil-owned Whiddy terminal.
A party under the command of Lieut Cdr Barry O'Halloran, from the LE Aisling, represented the Naval Service, while a wreath was laid jointly by the chairman of Cork County Council, Mr Kevin Murphy, and the chairman of Bantry Town Commissioners, Mr Donal Casey.
Family members then laid their wreaths, and there was an interval for private prayer before the piper, Donal Cronin, from Ballingeary, turned to face out across the bay towards the misting mountains of Beara and play a haunting version of Amazing Grace.
