Family members of two climbers who lost their lives on a mountain in Co Kerry on Sunday made their way yesterday to the Lough Duff area in the Black Valley to await the recovery of the bodies of their loved ones.
The bodies of Mr John Lucey (56), from Cork, general secretary of PDFORRA, and Ms Joan O'Leary (35), from Castletownroche, Co Cork, a programme development officer with Rehab in Cork city, were brought to hearses in the Black Valley, 18 miles west of Killarney, by the Irish Coast Guard rescue helicopter at 3p.m.
The recovery operation, part helicopter and part stretcher, began at 7 a.m. and proved more difficult than expected. It had already been postponed overnight because of dangerous conditions in steep terrain.
Twenty-four members of Kerry Mountain Rescue were airlifted earlier in the morning to the Lough Duff area, some 600 ft below the bodies.
After an hour's walk over a ridge, the recovery team made its way to the bodies in a gully, returning them to the lakeside where the helicopter could take them to the valley floor.
Mr Tim Murphy, who was in charge of the base station in the Black Valley, described the two- day operation as "one of the most difficult ones we have come across".
It was the first double fatality faced by Kerry Mountain Rescue since it was set up in 1966.
The terrain was difficult and almost everyone on the team knew Ms O'Leary well. This made it especially hard on everyone, said Mr Murphy. "She was a lovely girl. She always had a smile on her face."
The Volunteer Missionary Movement (VMM) in Drumcondra, Dublin, got many calls yesterday from formers friends and colleagues of Ms O'Leary.
In recent years, Ms O'Leary worked as programme development officer with Rehab and completed many walks for charity.
She had spent more than two years in Wamba, central Kenya, between September 1990 and January 1993, as a volunteer for the Christian VMM.
Two members of the rescue team remained with the bodies overnight, honouring a Kerry mountaineers' tradition.
The bodies were received from the helicopter by Beaufort parish priest Father Jack Fitzgerald, who administered the Last Rites and prayed with some 30 members of both the O'Leary and Lucey families and representatives of the Garda and Naval Service.
A third climber, Mr Raymond Clancy (35), from Kilrush, Co Clare, and Ms O'Leary's partner, remained in Tralee General Hospital yesterday with head and back injuries. He was airlifted off the mountain by helicopter on Sunday afternoon.
The alarm was raised at 2.30 p.m. on Sunday when a fourth member of the party, Mr Paddy Doyle, from Blarney, Co Cork, made his way to the farmhouse of Paudie and Teresa Casey, about three miles from the scene of the accident, to seek help.
Both Mr Lucey and Ms O'Leary were highly experienced mountain climbers. Ms O'Leary's first cousin, Mr Jim O'Leary, said yesterday at the scene: "She lived for the outdoors."
It was not possible to establish exactly what had happened but the most likely explanation was "one tripped and carried the others down", said Mr Tim Long, a senior member of the rescue team.
He said the walkers had not used ropes. The Lough Duff horseshoe was regularly used by experienced walkers and would not have been considered difficult by experienced people.
Father Fitzgerald said: "People are shocked and stunned at what happened, especially following so soon after the St Stephen's Day tragedy when 23-year-old Warren O'Brien lost his life on Carrauntoohil."