You are all very welcome to this, the late Peter Bird's 61st birthday celebration. I am very proud and honoured, on behalf of the people of Kilkee, County Clare, that you, the extended Bird family and close friends have come to this place to remember Peter. It has been through a series of strange and tragic circumstances that we are all gathered here. This place is the only spot where the lost ocean rowers of the world are commemorated.
The names etched on this stone monument are those of true heroes who followed a path few would have chosen, a path which they truly believed was their destiny, a task for which they paid the ultimate price. The fates have deemed that Kilkee has become the place where they are remembered and I truly believe that those who have been lost rowing the oceans have conspired to deem it so. Peter never visited here but it is so strange that his mother Joan here present has ancestry associated with the area.

When Nenad Belic's boat was found upturned in the ocean here in 2001 it set off a chain of events that ultimately led to today's ceremony. Now we have gathered here, three generations of Peter's family including his mother Joan, his son Louis, his sister Judy and his brother Tony. Along with them and Peter's friend Kenneth Crutchlow, my wife Blathnaid and I too find ourselves moved in that one of our sons Joe is also here and, being the same age as Louis, they have now struck up a friendship which I am sure will continue through Louis' wish to return and visit us here in Kilkee.

Tom Byrne speaking at the unveiling of the memorial on March 22nd  2003
Photo courtesy of the Kilrush RNLI Lifeboat Station Website

 This is what those dear to us whom we have lost have conspired to achieve, knowing that these small events ultimately lead to greater and longer friendships between people who would never have met except for these tragic circumstances. What a way to do justice to the memory of those brave and focussed people who followed their dreams and who now smile upon us here in this wonderful place in such wonderful weather.

Happy Birthday Peter.

Inscription by architect Tom Byrne, Chairman of the Kilkee Civic Trust

For pictures go to  ORS photoalbum and Kilrush Lifeboat Station website