It will be the 40th anniversary of the night the two Byrnes and three fellow fishermen drowned when the Skifjord trawler sunk while sheltering from a storm

Francis was aged 40. His son was 16. He left behind a wife Winnie and eight children Francis (Jnr), Susie, Win, Eamon, Anthony, Danny, Pauric and Michelle.

Francis Byrne (Jnr) was just finishing his first term in NIHE, now the University of Limerick. Susie was the oldest girl. The remaining six were under the age of 12. Michelle was three when her father drowned.

Jimmie’s body was found by divers the Friday after the sinking but Francis’s body was swept away, never to be found.

Francis (Jnr) still recalls that fateful day with remarkable clarity.

“It was a Saturday morning and I received a phone call in Limerick to come home as soon as possible. I was not given any real reason and wondered was one of the younger kids ill or was mum back in hospital. The boat was in the back of my mind but..,” he said.

It was 8.30am and within the hour his landlord had left him on the Ennis road to hitch a series of lifts back to Donegal.

“I eventually heard on the radio news that day what was going on. There is one line that stays in my head all these years later: ‘Skipper and son among those missing’,” he recalled.

More detail emerged with each hour of travel and after many hours he eventually got home by which point he realised how serious things were.

“I remember telling mum that I was home to stay. I had to. There was so much to be done. There were the searches, winding up my father’s business and looking about a job to bring an income into the house,” he said.

Without a body, the death certificate was not issued promptly. This meant Winnie could not qualify for a widow’s pension – an issue which eventually got resolved. On top of that, Francis had died without making a will.

The county sheriff paid visits. Eviction was threatened. The family home had to be re-mortgaged.

“Jimmie’s body was found in a deep body of water six days later and being asked to identify a sixteen year old sibling was tough. To do it when you’re still a teenager yourself was not easy but it was something that I had to do.

“I have a sixteen-year-old and eighteen-year-old in my own house today and I couldn’t bear to lose either of them. I wouldn’t wish it on them to have to go to a morgue to identify anybody, particularly one of their own siblings. I still don’t like thinking about that day,” he admitted.

“That said, it was my responsibility and I guess I had to grow up fast,” he added.

The coastal community from Burtonport back into Donegal Bay was a big support to the Byrnes and the immediate weeks following the tragedy were spent searching the shoreline.

“As a family, we will always owe people of Burtonport and the wider area a great deal of gratitude and thanks,” he said.

“Jimmie’s body was found by Patrick Kyles, a local diver, to whom we are also eternally grateful as we now have a grave to visit.

“On the day of Jimmie’s funeral the priest in Bruckless, Fr Patrick Cunningham, himself a St John’s Point man, said that only it was a Sunday he would have celebrated a Mass of the Angels for him. That’s how highly he thought of him and his many friends from rowing and regattas, to school and football, from socialising to the fishing community understand what Fr Patrick was saying. He was a good looking lad who will always be sixteen to us,” he said.

A memorial stone was unveiled in Cloughglass in 2006, making the 25th anniversary of the tragedy.

“Back in 1981, Andrew Bonner and his wife Grace, opened their house in Cloughglass to us as a family. Twenty-five years later their twin sons Packie (former Irish goalkeeper) and Denis spent the day out in the soaking rain to make sure that everyone got parked ahead of the memorial service.

“Fr Eddie Gallagher, who was in Dungloe at the time, was also a great source of support to the family and, like the Bonners, remain good friends since,” he said.

A week before the tragedy, Franics (jnr) had been tasked with driving around to Rathmullan to collect his father where they had landed their latest catch.

“I vividly remember going to Killybegs to collect his car where he parked it at the pier before heading out on the boat that night. When I got into the car I had to pull the seat forward as he was taller than me and had longer legs. I knew there and then that I would never be pulling the seat forward again. Things like that hit you like a ton of bricks,” he sighed.

“There were so many crazy things which had to be done in the days after the tragedy like getting new house and car keys cut because dad had them with him on the boat.

“I also had to deal with the business side of things. Like most healthy forty year olds, dad didn’t have a will and the laws of intestacy and administration surfaced pretty quickly,” he said.

At that time Francis Junior was a first year student in European Legal Studies. He returned to Limerick to say goodbye to college friends before going to work in Gallagher’s Fish Factory.

“We needed an income. I had worked there before going to college so I was happy enough going back. Once the fishing season ended I went to the Middle East and worked there for three years, on and off,” he said.

Francis Byrne (Senior) was born in St John’s Point in August 1941 to Jim Byrne and Bridget McCallig. Jim was the lighthouse keeper and fisherman while Bridget was from a well known St John’s Point fishing family – all 11 of her brothers fished.

In April 1945 Danny McCallig’s boat was lost at sea off St John’s Point and among those lost was Jim Byrne and two other local men.

On that day, Bridget lost her husband Jim and brother Danny and she was left with two children under the age of four – Francis Byrne and his sister Josephine who lives in New Jersey today.

In the 1950s another brother, the youngest Anthony, was also lost at sea.

“Dad fished for a while before he went to America at the end of the 1950s. He returned with a wife and young family in 1969 and went back fishing all through the 70s. In the summer of ‘81 he bought the Skifjord. He was young and full of optimism when he went out on Friday, October, 1981 to meet up with his partner boat.

“It was a very tough time for my grandmother Bridget who, by now, had lost her husband and two brothers at sea as well as her only son and a grandson in another sea tragedy.

“She was a great help to mum in the years afterwards only to die herself four years later, in 1985, due to cancer aged sixty-five years” he said.

Winnie Byrne, a native of Mayo, met Francis in New York in 1960. The couple had nine children who were aged between three and nineteen in October 1981.

“People talk about the various hardships that fishermen face but it takes a special resilience to be a fisherman’s wife. Between rearing children, budgeting without a steady income and always worrying about the dangers of her husband’s job was tough.

“Mum took a call from a reporter at 6.30am that Halloween morning. She had no idea what was about to unfold. She had a house full of young children who were looking forward to Halloween and the games and parties.

“I was 200 miles away in Limerick at college and here was some stranger on the phone asking for information. It wasn’t easy,” he said.

“Mum has told us since that losing a spouse was terrible but losing a child that you brought into the world was that much tougher to endure,” he said.

In 2018, Mrs Byrne received an ex-gratia payment from Minister for Marine Michael Creed after a 14-year battle over her exclusion from the “Lost at Sea scheme” to support families whose vessels had sunk.

Almost nine years earlier, the then Ombudsman Emily O’Reilly recommended that a sum of €245,570 be paid to Ms Byrne after investigating a complaint taken by her family on her behalf in 2004.

“That was another battle which mum didn’t need at that stage of her life but, I suppose, that’s a story for another day,” he said.

Through her strong faith she managed to keep things together, bringing up a family of eight. She’s now a grandmother to 14 and great grandmother to six.

Francis and his brother Eamon live in Donegal, Susie, Win and Pauric are in New York, Danny lives in Dublin, Anthony is in Leeds while Michelle is in Sligo.

Francis (Junior) did eventually get back to college and two years ago graduated with a first class honours masters degree in Governance, Commerce and Data Protection in Financial Services from LYIT.

He will join his mum, siblings and family at Mass in Bruckless this Sunday morning to remember those who were lost in the Skifjord and all those who have been lost at sea.