Tributes have been paid to former Irish Coast Guard station officer Dara O’Malley-Daly, who has died after a short illness at the age of 63.
As The Sunday Independent reports, the Malin Head Coast Guard station officer in Donegal combined his passion for the sea, swimming and surfing with development of water safety.
Irish Coast Guard colleagues, members of Water Safety Ireland (WSI) and volunteers with the RNLI Lough Swilly lifeboat station, are among those who have paid tribute to him, along with Irish Surfing’s development officer Zoe Lally who has described his immense contribution.
Dara studied to become a radio officer, a career his father had also pursued, at Atlantic College in Dublin and Kevin Street College and went to sea in 1985 with Quadrant Marine Services.
He met and married Mairead Finn, who worked with Allied Irish Banks in Ballyshannon, and the couple married and reared two sons, Oisin and Eoin.
He took up a post with Barry Electronics in Killybegs in 1994, and became a familiar face in home fishing ports and in shipyards abroad. In 2002, he was appointed radio officer with the Irish Coast Guard at Malin Head station.
He was a member of Rossnowlagh Surf Club and held various roles within Irish Surfing, the national governing body, including chairperson, secretary, safety officer and instructor developer. He was part of the organising committee for Eurosurf Bundoran in 2011, and he competed regularly as part of the “Donegal Z” team with Kevin McCloskey, Dodo McLoughlin and Kevin Tobin.
He held many roles with WSI, including examiner and instructor, and always took the most positive approach to testing lifeguards on their skills. He also played a leading role in developing a safety culture with surfers and tow-in surfers.
He was a very accomplished open water swimmer, and both he and John Maguire completed a charity swim in August 2004 from St John’s Point in Donegal to Creevy pier in Ballyshannon – a total of 19 kilometres – to raise funds for Parkinson’s Disease. He also completed the Alcatraz swim in San Francisco Bay along with his three siblings on October 4th, 2019.
He participated regularly in Christmas Day swims for various causes, and one of his last public appearances was to present proceeds of the 2023 swim to the Good and New charity which runs a free bus for cancer patients travelling to Galway, and the North-West Hospice.
Dara O’Malley-Daly is survived by his wife Mairead, sons Oisin and Eoin, his mother Mary, siblings Orla, Sarah and Patrick, daughter-in-law Kate and extended family.
Read The Sunday Independent here