Grammy award-winning singer Taylor Swift has made contact with one of the two Galway cousins who survived a 15-hour ordeal in Galway Bay after they were swept out to the Atlantic on paddleboards last August.
As The Sunday Times reported, the two cousins Ellen Glynn and Sara Feeney had belted out every Taylor Swift song they knew to keep their spirits up.
The American singer has responded with a recent letter and painting which she has sent to Glynn, expressing how moved she is to know about their ordeal.
The Sunday Times also reports that the Irish Coast Guard is currently conducting satellite-tracked trials at sea with inflatables paddleboards to ensure they are included in search mapping software.
It is one of the facts reported in RTÉ’s Documentary on One by Lorna Siggins and Sarah Blake, which was broadcast last night and available on the RTE player.
At that point, the cousins had survived torrential rain, thunder and lightning and heavy seas, and had managed to grab on to floats attached to crab pots set south of Inis Oírr by Aran fisherman Bertie Donohue.
Claddagh fisherman Patrick Oliver and his 18-year-old son Morgan, were already on their way to the location, having judged a north-easterly wind would sweep them diagonally out into the Atlantic.
The internal review has confirmed the women were carried 18.5 nautical miles or over 33 kilometres – not 27 kilometres as initially reported – at an average speed of 2.2 nautical miles an hour.
It records there were a large number of false sightings which had to be checked out by the three Irish Coast Guard helicopters on rotation, along with RNLI Aran and Galway lifeboats and Irish Coast Guard units from Doolin and Costelloe Bay.
Contact was made with the Naval Service at 6 am on Thursday, and a formal request made for a ship at 11.10 am.
The Air Corps was requested at 7 am but the Casa maritime patrol plane was under repair and not available until after 1 pm.
By this time the two women, who were exhausted and hypothermic, were being flown from Inis Oírr to University Hospital, Galway by the Rescue117 Waterford-based Sikorsky S-92.
Read The Sunday Times here
Listen to the RTÉ Doc on One - Miracle in Galway Bay – by Lorna Siggins and Sarah Blake here