The bodies of a man and a woman will this morning be taken from a mountainside in Co Kerry following their deaths after a climbing accident. A third person injured in the incident was airlifted to Tralee General Hospital.
The dead man was confirmed last night as Mr John Lucey (56), general secretary for the past nine years of PDFORRA, the permanent Defence Forces representative association. From Cork, he was an experienced hillwalker and had climbed Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa twice for charity.
The unnamed woman, who was in her 30s, is also understood to be from Cork.
The two climbers who died were among a party of four and fell while on their way down a steep gully in the Lough Duff area in the Black Valley, south-west of Killarney, at about 2 p.m. yesterday.
A 35-year-old man, believed to be from Co Clare and suffering from head and back injuries, was airlifted to Tralee General Hospital by the Irish Coastguard Sikorsky helicopter. He was in a stable condition last night.
The fourth member of the party made his way to a farmhouse and called for help shortly after 3.15 p.m. Weather conditions were calm at the time.
Members of Kerry Mountain Rescue, already on a rescue mission on Carrauntoohil to take a man with head injuries from the Devil's Ladder area of the mountain, were called to the scene.
There have now been three fatalities in the past 10 days in the Kerry mountains. Warren O'Brien, (23), an experienced climber, fell to his death while ascending Carrauntoohil on St Stephen's Day.