AN ISLAND community's celebration of a century and a quarter of saving lives at sea was cancelled yesterday because of the death of a local man in a road collision.
Arranmore RNLI lifeboat station, off the coast of Donegal, has been operating since 1883.
Big celebrations to mark the occasion were planned for yesterday but they were called off following the death on Thursday in Co Mayo of 37-year-old Seamus Boyle, a native of Arranmore.
His remains were brought to his parents' Arranmore home for the weekend and ferried back to the mainland yesterday for burial in Kiltimagh today after a funeral Mass at the Church of the Holy Family.
Mr Boyle died in a collision involving two vans in Kiltimagh. He had recently returned from Chicago with his wife, Caroline, and four-year-old son to live in Kiltimagh where he had just started a job as a postman.
It is believed he was treating his little boy to a spin in the van when the collision occurred. His son escaped serious injury. His wife is due to give birth to the couple's second baby in five weeks' time.
Arranmore lifeboat spokeswoman Nora Flanagan said there wasn't the will among islanders to go ahead with the celebrations.