On the first of April 1991, John McNamara and his twelve-year-old son Simon set out from Ballinskelligs in a yacht, despite warnings about the sea state. They were aiming for Derrynane. They never arrived. The lifeboat call came late, and when it came, it was too late. Out of that loss, a small group of Kerry volunteers built something the coastline had been missing for nearly a century and a half - a fast inshore rescue boat, ready to launch from Derrynane Beach.
Derrynane already knew lifeboats. In 1844, the Royal National Institution for the Preservation of Life from Shipwreck established a station on Derrynane Beach and dispatched an unnamed 26-foot, five-oared lifeboat. The RNIPLS reorganised itself into the Royal National Lifeboat Institution in 1854, but the Derrynane station - never busy, possibly never used in a documented rescue - closed in 1855 after just eleven years. The original lifeboat house is still standing, now a private residence. For nearly a century and a half afterwards, this stretch of the Kenmare River had no dedicated rescue craft. Trawlermen, yachtsmen, swimmers, and tourists all relied on the more distant stations at Valentia and Castletownbere - both excellent, both too far away for fast response on a coast where minutes decide outcomes.
After the McNamara tragedy, Austin Wilson, who ran the local water sports centre, talked with Michael Donnelly and a handful of other volunteers. The conclusion was unambiguous: the Kenmare River needed its own boat, and it needed it close to the beach. They scraped together a small inshore vessel and registered Derrynane Inshore Rescue as an independent search-and-rescue charity in 1995. The early years were threadbare. A boat needs a slipway, a slipway needs civil engineering, and an independent rescue service runs on donations, ring-of-kerry-cycle benefit cheques, and the kind of stubborn local pride that does not give up. By 2002 the volunteers had built a proper concrete slipway at a cost of 27,000 euros. The Earl of Dunraven, of Kilgobbin House in Adare, donated and renovated a boathouse.
On 8 December 2003, a new self-righting Delta 740X RIB, purchased from Delta Power Group in Stockport and ferried home with help from Irish Ferries, arrived at Derrynane to a warm welcome. On Easter Sunday, 11 April 2004, hundreds of spectators gathered at Derrynane Harbour for the formal inauguration. The boat was named Aghamore II, after the abbey on the strand. With twin 115-horsepower Yamaha engines, four seats, and a top speed of 43 knots, she was the fastest thing in the Kenmare River. A plaque to founder Austin Wilson, who had died in 2000 without seeing the boat he had set in motion, was unveiled on the boathouse. In November 2016, Aghamore II went away for a 120,000-euro full refit. The Ring of Kerry cycle race contributed 33,000 euros toward the fund. On 28 May 2017, she came home, marked by a fly-past from the Irish Coast Guard Sikorsky rescue helicopter.
Today Derrynane Inshore Rescue is a Declared Resource with the Irish Coast Guard - meaning when there is a maritime incident on this stretch of the south-west coast, the Coast Guard can task the Derrynane boat directly. The service is a member of Community Rescue Boats Ireland and a registered charity, run entirely on volunteer crews and donations. Helen Wilson, Austin's widow and a co-founder, was mourned at her funeral at St Crohan's Church in Caherdaniel on 19 April 2023. The boathouse on the Mass Path at Derrynane Beach is the operational heart of the service: pagers go off, volunteers run from kitchens and tractors and shops in Caherdaniel, the boat is on the water in minutes. Most of the time there is no story, just a quiet patrol of a beautiful coast. Sometimes, against bad odds, there is a life saved.
Derrynane Inshore Rescue's boathouse sits at 51.7614 deg N, 10.1446 deg W on the Mass Path above Derrynane Beach. From 1500-2500 feet AGL the beach is visible as a long pale curve at the southern edge of Derrynane Bay, with Abbey Island offshore and the Kenmare River opening eastward. Nearest airport is Kerry (EIKY), 75 km north-east. Coastal weather and sea state change quickly; the boat operates from a coast where Atlantic swell meets the entrance of the Kenmare River.