‘If that moss and algae weren’t there, his handbrake would have saved him’ – daughter of man in fatal pier accident calls for action
Joanna McNulty from Belderrig in County Mayo is calling for local authorities across Ireland to implement urgent safety measures at piers and slipways, and to review cleaning and maintenance schedules to reflect the growing number of people using coastal infrastructure.
Her appeal comes after the death of her father, Joachim McNulty, who died aged 64 after his car slipped on the moss and algae-covered surface of Belderrig Pier and entered the sea on Wednesday, February 18.
Joanna says introducing simple safety measures, including regular cleaning to remove moss and algae, improved lighting, better signage and safety barriers, could prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.
Mr McNulty, a father to Joanna, a husband to Geraldine, and a grandfather to Fiadh, was born in Belderrig and worked as a farmer. He was a beloved man in his community and was also a keen fisherman who knew Belderrig Pier very well.
Speaking about the events of that night, Joanna recalled how the first sign that something was wrong came in a phone call from her mother. She, her husband and their daughter had been visiting her in-laws and were preparing to leave when the call came.
She remembers the phone ringing at around 8.05pm and her Mum said to her: ‘There’s something up with your Dad, he’s after ringing me, [he said] that he’s in difficulty down at the pier and he’s looking for you to go down and help him’.
It took Joanna around ten minutes to reach the pier.
“We rushed over, and when we got to the pier, there was no sign of his car. Our neighbours were standing on top of the pier with flashlights, looking into the water. It was fairly obvious at that stage what had happened,
“I presume, from what I’ve heard from people that were there, that the car had gone into the water by the time Dad rang my Mam, and he told her that he had only a few minutes left.
It was not unusual for Mr McNulty to spend his evenings at Belderrig Pier. He had been a keen fisherman from a young age and Joanna said her father used to go every day at around 4.30pm.
“Dad was a lifelong fisherman, so the last thing you’d expect is for something like this to happen to him,
“He’d meet up with other local men in the area, and they could sit there for an hour, or two hours some evenings, talking about the weather, farming, fishing - you know, a typical Irish man,
“It was nearly like religion. You’d see him putting on his boots every evening and heading off,” she remembered.
Joanna explained that when she arrived at Belderrig Pier on the night, she parked her car around 200 metres from the top of the pier and ran towards a crowd that had gathered there, where people were shining flashlights into the water.
“When I saw the flashlights looking into the water, the penny dropped straight away. I knew then what had happened,
“I was roaring, and roaring and roaring, shouting ‘Dad, Dad, Dad’ - he had asked Mam for me to come and help him, all logic goes out the window, reasoning goes out the window,
“Looking back at it now I know he couldn’t have heard me, but I needed him to know that I was there, that I had come to try and help him,” she said.
“I didn’t want him to be gone without knowing that I had been there to try and do something for him.”
What followed was a near four-hour ordeal, as Joanna waited at the pier for her father’s car to be recovered.
She explained that a man who had been at the pier that evening entered the water in an attempt to save Mr McNulty, but was unable to reach him. The man then alerted emergency services, including the coastguard and gardaí.
“It was nearly full high tide when Dad had gone in, so we had to wait for the tide to go in order for them to be able to go in safely to get him,” she explained.
That was our main fear, that he wasn’t going to be in the car, that we might never get him back
The Gráinne Uaile Sub-Aqua Club had also been notified and were placed on standby, eventually getting called to the scene at around 10.30pm.
Joanna explained that crews were waiting to see how far the tide would go out, and whether the sub-aqua group would be needed to assist in the recovery or if the emergency services already present would be able to pull the car up themselves.
She said some of the local people who had gathered at the pier asked the coastguard to tie a rope to the car to keep it close due to the conditions on the night, fearing it might drift further out to sea and make recovery more difficult.
Joanna remained at the scene, her main fear being that her father might not be in the car when it was recovered and that her family might not be able to bring him home.
“You’re just sitting there, and you’re waiting, thinking ‘he must be so cold, he must be so cold in the water’ because it was freezing cold that night as well,” she said.
“The tide goes out, you get to see more and more of the car being revealed. It was very difficult. The car had been turned upside down by the pressure of the water as well, and then to try and figure out in your head what had happened,
“At some stage the penny dropped that the pressure of the water and the pressure of the waves are going to [have] shattered the windscreen and the windows,
“That was our main fear, that he wasn’t going to be in the car, that we might never get him back.”
Mr McNulty’s car was recovered at around 11.45pm, it wasn’t until then that Joanna got the confirmation that her father was in the vehicle.
“We were asking constantly if they [the coastguard] had any updates, if they could see him in the car. It wasn’t until they actually winched the car up onto the pier that they could confirm he was still there,” she said.
“Everyone from our community came to the pier that night. Everyone, all our neighbours, our Priest from the next parish back, he came down, he waited with us,
“Everyone in the community was there. Everyone just sat and watched and waited with us. Nobody really said anything, but they were just there with us.”
Belderrig is a small coastal village close to Céide Fields in north Mayo, and is home to generations of fishermen. Joanna said the support shown by the community that night is something she will never forget.
“It’s hard to explain to someone who’s not part of a fishing community, we have lost our Dad, our Grandad and our husband, but Dad was such a big part of the community here,
“The devastation among everyone is really profound. This doesn’t just affect us, it affects everyone.
“It is difficult to explain that when you’re not part of the fishing community and when you’re not part of a community as rural and as remote as this. It’s like everyone in the village is one extended family, it's heartbreaking for everyone.”
The response from the community that night reflected the deep respect and affection in which Mr McNulty was held in Belderrig.
This shouldn’t have happened, especially after what happened in Buncrana 10 years ago. It can’t be allowed to happen again
When Joanna returned to the pier the following day to lay flowers, she said the depth of heartbreak among the community was clear.
“We went down to the pier the next day to lay flowers, to light a candle for Dad. I met people, and they were breaking down in front of me. There was nothing they could say, but they were heartbroken.”
To many, Mr McNulty was Joachim - a proud Irishman who loved his animals, who was a hard worker, and who loved to go fishing. To Joanna, there was another side to her father.
When she gave the eulogy at her father’s funeral Mass, she said: “There were two sides to Dad, there was this hard, typical stoic Irish man who didn’t really talk about his feelings, who worked really hard.
“He was such a hard worker, he couldn’t be idle, he had to be out doing something all the time, [he was] very traditional in his ways,
“Then there was this softer side to him, he would carry me down to bed on his back, on a piggyback every night until I was about 12 or 13,” she recalled.
“There were little things all the time, that looking back now you think there was another side to him that an awful lot of people didn’t get to see, a softer side to him.”
Joanna and her husband welcomed their daughter Fiadh 18 months ago. She said once Mr McNulty heard he was to have a granddaughter, “he completely changed and showed his softer side an awful lot more.”
“It’s amazing to be able to give your parents grandkids because you get to see the best versions of them,
“I’ll always be grateful for having had those 18 months with Dad, getting to see the softer side of him all the time. It was really special, she was just his world.”
Joanna described the conditions that night, noting the surface was covered in moss and algae, and said her father had pulled his handbrake right up and had even tried to escape by hitting his car door, she said he had hit it hard enough to cause bruising on his arm.
“I had a lot of people say to me over the last few days, ‘What was he doing that close to the pier in the first place?’
“I don’t know what he was doing, I can’t tell you, but what I can tell you is that you can see from the very top of the pier where he pulled his handbrake,
“Regardless of how he ended up in the situation he was in, he pulled his handbrake to the last. If that moss and algae weren’t there, his handbrake would’ve saved him,” she said.
Her father knew the pier like the back of his hand, but the conditions that night were treacherous, and the lighting along the pier was poor.
“At the very top of the pier, there is no visible moss or algae, it’s this brown red stuff, which, when it is wet, you can’t see,
“We spent four hours there that night, I didn’t see it whatsoever. It wasn’t until the next day when I went down that I saw it,” she explained.
Joanna is now calling for stronger safety measures across piers and harbours, not just in Mayo, but across Ireland.
She is urging local authorities to review how often piers are cleaned and maintained, and for central Government to provide councils with the funding needed to carry out this work.
“It's like everything in Ireland, everything is constrained by a budget, and it’s not until something like this happens that it's revisited,
“This shouldn’t have happened, especially after what happened in Buncrana 10 years ago. It can’t be allowed to happen again,” she said.
Joanna explained that Mayo County Council currently assesses pier cleaning schedules based on the number of boats using each pier.
“Belderrig pier is cleaned around twice a year. According to the county council, the response that we have from them is that they base their cleaning schedule on the level of use of the pier,
“They are very constrained by budgets, they have to put some limit on the amount of times a year the pier is cleaned, which I completely understand,” she said.
But Joanna highlighted that Belderrig Pier is now used by more than just fishermen. The area is a popular tourist destination, with the Céide Fields nearby, as well as a tidal pool and it is used by a number of kayakers and diver throughout the year.
As well as highlighting the need for increased cleaning and maintenance, Joanna is calling for improved signage, better lighting, and safety barriers to be installed at piers.
“There needs to be a safety barrier placed at every pier, because there are tourists coming here, particularly in the summer months. There’s only one light down there at the minute and it’s very poor, there’s no signage at all, there’s nothing to warn people,
“If something like this can happen to my Dad, who went down there every evening, probably for 70pc of his evening, for his entire life, it’s going to happen to somebody else,” she said.
After sharing a Facebook post outlining her father’s accident and her call for regular cleaning and safety barriers, Joanna said she has been contacted by people from all over Ireland who have experienced similar issues, reporting falls, accidents, and ineffective or broken barriers at local piers.
This can’t just be a Mayo issue, it can’t just be a Belderrig issue, it has to be nationwide. This needs larger Government involvement
She said many of these people had reported their concerns to local authorities, but received no response.
“First of all, it is very difficult to identify who the responsible person is to contact if you notice something like that, and secondly, there doesn’t seem to be a level of responsibility or accountability being taken,
“If someone comes to me in my job and I don’t have the answer, I have to put them in contact with the right person, that doesn’t seem to be happening here,” she said.
“Anybody can be on that pier, and God forbid, somebody had a heart attack or a stroke while they were driving, the same thing could happen,
“If you want to play a blame game, yes, sure, he shouldn’t have been that close to the pier, but at the end of the day, my father did his best to get out, and it still wasn’t enough,
“It could happen to anyone, and I don’t want to see it happening to anyone else,” she said.
Since the night of her father’s accident, Joanna has been engaging with Mayo Senator Mark Duffy and Mayo councillor Michael Loftus to push for change at a national level, so that no other family has to go through what hers is currently going through.
“This can’t just be a Mayo issue, it can’t just be a Belderrig issue, it has to be nationwide. This needs larger Government involvement,
“We are an island country, there are piers and harbours across the country, and this can’t just be reviewed for Mayo, or for Donegal, like it was after Buncrana. It has to be reviewed at a much broader level in order to prevent this from happening again,” she said.
Senator Duffy has brought the issue to the attention of Minister of the Department of Agriculture, Food and the Marine Timmy Dooley, and Joanna hopes to meet with him in the coming weeks and months to advocate for a nationwide action.
“This is not just down to the county council, they can only do so much with the budget they are given. It needs to be reviewed at a much higher level to ensure that they are given the adequate resources that they need to maintain the piers properly,” she said.
It’s incredibly difficult, last night was the first time it hit me that he is not coming home
In the weeks since losing her father, Joanna said that some days have been easier than others, but each day comes with a reminder that Mr McNulty is not coming home.
Mr McNulty was a Swaledale sheep breeder, and before he headed to the pier that night, he and Joanna had made plans to go to the upcoming annual general meeting together in Tullamore.
“You take so much for granted. I left here that evening with Fiadh, I said goodbye to Dad. In the blink of an eye it’s all gone. It's very hard to wrap your head around,” she said.
“Some days are easier than others. I’ve kind of thrown myself into this [campaigining].
“Somebody said to me, ‘Are you burying your head in the sand, trying to distract yourself from what happened?’ Part of me probably is, but I just can’t let anyone else go through what we have gone through,
“It’s incredibly difficult, last night was the first time it hit me that he is not coming home,
“It’s silly little things, like my husband's dad coming into the house and you’re sitting there looking at them talking, thinking ‘I’m never going to get that chance again’,” she said.
“People have said to me, 'At least it happened suddenly, it would’ve been worse if you watched him being sick for a long time, you wouldn’t want that either’,
“It's very easy for people to say that when it’s not them lying down in bed at night and you’re suffocated by the darkness, wondering what must’ve been going through his head when he made that phone call,
“Or what must’ve been going through his head, like his arm was so badly bruised from trying to hit it against the door to get out,” she explained.
“I find it very hard to be in the car on my own now, and I find it very hard to lie down in bed at night because that’s all I can see, all I can see is him panicking.”
“I think a lot of the time, people don’t know what to say to you, and they're trying to say something that they think will bring you some level of comfort,
“Sometimes all you need is for someone to say, ‘Yeah, this is a really crappy situation, and I can’t imagine how you are going to deal with it’,” she said.
Joanna listened to Louise James on Highland Radio on Thursday, March 12, speaking about the upcoming 10-year anniversary of the Buncrana Pier Tragedy, and said it gave her some hope.
“It does give you hope that life, I don’t know if it gets better, but you learn to carry your cross,
“At the minute it feels like an unbearable weight, but we learn to carry it. It gave some comfort that ten years on, she is still going.”
Joanna has started an online petition on Change.org calling for stronger safey standards at Belderrig Pier and all piers across Ireland, she is asking for immediate action to be taken to help prevent future tragedies.
This article has been funded by the Local Democracy Reporting Scheme.