#RNLI - The volunteer crew at Dun Laoghaire RNLI will hold their traditional Christmas Eve ceremony to remember the 15 volunteers that died on service in 1895 at noon this Sunday.
The crew will remember all those who lost their lives around the coast and inland, and this year will be paying a special tribute to their Irish Coast Guard colleagues, the crew of Rescue 116, who died tragically last March.
Taking place at the lighthouse end of Dun Laoghaire’s East Pier, the short ceremony will include music, an ecumenical blessing, a contemporary newspaper account of the 1895 tragedy and a piped lament.
Both the all-weather and inshore lifeboats stationed at Dun Laoghaire will launch and the crew will lay wreaths at sea close to the pier.
The ceremony is a long-standing Christmas Eve tradition that remembers the lives of the 15 volunteer crew that died when their lifeboat capsized in gale force winds while attempting to rescue those on board the SS Palme that had run aground off Blackrock, Co Dublin.
All lives lost around the Irish coast and on inland waterways in 2017 will be remembered during the ceremony.