#Coastguard - The funeral of Irish Coast Guard Captain Mark Duffy took place in Blackrock, Co Louth yesterday (Thursday 30 March), as The Irish Times reports.

President Michael D Higgins was among those in attendance to pay respects to the long-serving coastguard pilot, husband and father of two, who died when the Dublin-based Sikorsky S-92 helicopter carrying him and three fellow crew went down off the Mayo coast on 14 March.

Capt Dara Fitzgerald was recovered within hours of the incident but died in hospital shortly after.

Capt Duffy’s remains were recovered earlier this week from the cockpit of Rescue 116, on the sea bed off Black Rock west of the Mullet Peninsula, where divers continue to work amid “hugely challenging” conditions.

Salvage experts who helped recover Rambler 100 off Fastnet in 2011 are now being drafted in to assist in the lifting of the helicopter wreck in the search for missing crew men Paul Ormsby and Ciaran Smith.

The Irish Times has more on the story HERE.