‘I love talking about them, because I have so many happy memories of them’

Louise James often asks herself how she has lived 10 years without her loved ones, but says she has found strength in the many signs they have given her to show they are near.

On March 20, 2016, Louise’s partner Sean McGrotty (49), her sons Mark (12) and Evan (8), her mother Ruth (57) and sister Jodie (14) sadly lost their lives when their car slipped into the sea at Buncrana pier.

Louise’s baby daughter, Rioghnach (below), was rescued.

Louise, uncharacteristically, was not with them that day as she had gone away for the weekend to a hen party in Liverpool.

Her loss was immeasurable, and the outpouring of grief for the family and the support for Louise and little Rioghnach, who is now a gorgeous, curly-haired 10-year-old, came from across the country and world.

As the 10th anniversary approaches, Louise wants her family to be remembered in a positive way and has organised events to raise funds for the Lough Swilly RNLI and the services involved on that tragic day.

A walk from Buncrana Play Park to the RNLI station at Ned’s Point will take place on Sunday, March 22, and a Gala Ball will be held on Friday, May 8 – her mammy Ruth’s birthday.

The events will also celebrate the wonderful lives of Sean, Mark, Evan, Ruth and Jodie, who all loved each other so much.

Coming up to the events, Louise has been looking through old pictures and videos for the social media pages. While this has been ‘very tough,’ to do, she has been struck by the fact that ‘they’re always smiling in every picture’.

“What I love about them is that Jodie, Mark and Evan are always together. Because, Jodie was such a big part of my life. Even though she was my little sister, she went everywhere with us. The boys always said to her: ‘You’re not our auntie, you’re our sister.’ There were only two years between her and Mark.”

The pictures and videos represent just some of the wonderful memories Louise has of each of her family.

They were, individually, incredible people and a close-knit family. While some memories bring a tear, others spark much laughter.

“My mammy was the life and soul of a party,” says Louise. “She would have done anything for anybody. She loved her neighbours and she loved life.”

“She also loved her grandwains. They meant the world to her – she’d do anything to have them. The house was always filled. The boys loved getting down, as there was always something going on. The house was never empty. She was always saying: ‘If you’re coming, bring milk!’ as the kettle was never off.”

Sean was, she tells, a ‘grafter,’ who adored his pigeons which, Louise laughs, he “always put first!”

“He was very pinickety in his work – he did stained glass.”

“Sean loved his pigeons. Every Saturday, we wouldn’t be allowed into the backyard as it was race day. Mark didn’t really like the pigeons, but Evan had a wee soft spot for a few he liked.”

“Sean would have done anything for anybody. He had a heart of gold.”

Jodie was beautiful, inside and out. She looked after the boys and ‘just idolised them’.

Louise laughs as she remembers how Jodie would sometimes send a note into school to say she had a sore stomach, as she didn’t want to do PE.

“Our whole house was sporty, but not her! I don’t know where she came out of, she hated sports.”

Jodie also adored her friends and had a very caring side.

Mark, Louise discloses, was ‘very soft’ and his mammy’s ‘protector.’

“He loved his school, St Joe’s. It was weird because, at that time, just before he died, I started seeing a change in Mark, where he was getting a bit more mature.”

“He came home from school one day and said he’d auditioned for the school show. I said: ‘Sorry, what?’ He said: ‘Aye, me, Kian and Ryan, who he was friends with since he was 2 – and the boys still check in with me, they’re amazing – the three of them were Indians. There’s a picture of them, which shows just how much fun they had. They really enjoyed every minute of it. I was so proud.”

“I always said Mark was my wee protector. Because, no matter what, he was always in front of me. He would never let anyone say ‘boo’ to me or let anyone hurt me. Not that anyone would, but he was just very protective.”

READ NEXT: Moville ladies come together to celebrate Women’s Day, support Lifeline Inishowen

He also protected Evan, his little brother, who Louise describes as a ‘wee character’.

Evan had been diagnosed with Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy at age three and Louise had, with other parents, frequently fundraised and raised awareness of the condition.

Louise smiles as she recalls how Evan was ‘crafty,’ too, and would tell her, in his own childlike words, how he had ‘that’ muscular dystrophy when he and Mark would be told to clean up their Lego.

“We didn’t wrap him in cotton wool. I tried my best to give him a good life and let him live it. He loved his friends and being outside. One day, he’d been up all night with sore legs. I got Mark up for school and was going to let Evan stay off. We were halfway up the street and all I heard was: ‘Mammy, get back up here and get me dressed – I’m going to school’. I had to go back to the house and get him ready. He loved school. Even when it came to June, he’d say the summer was too long and he wasn’t going to see his friends.”

Mark and Evan’s friends still visit Louise and Rioghnach regularly.

Evan was very much devoted to his mammy – as was Mark – and on the times the family would visit the ‘amazing’ NI Children’s Hospice for respite, he’d sneak down from his room and snuggle in beside her in bed.

“It was a privilege being their mammy. I’m so honoured I was their mammy. I know they’re not here, but they’re mine.”

Rioghnach is ‘very like’ both Mark and Evan in looks and characteristics, adds Louise.

She watches videos of all her family, chats about them, and knows she was there on that fateful day.

The three siblings all had a close bond and young Evan, in fact, told Louise long before Rioghnach was born that he was going to have a baby sister.

“Evan told me when he was in Nursery that I was going to have Rioghnach, that I was going to have a wee girl, but that she wasn’t ready to come yet.”

“Mark used to laugh at Evan drawing pictures of me as he’d say: ‘You’re drawing Mammy fat.’ Evan would tell him, no, that’s her baby that isn’t ready to come yet.”

On Evan’s 8th birthday, the family ate a Chinese meal and Louise later felt sick. She blamed it on the food, but Evan told her that it was his baby sister, in her ‘tummy’.

When Louise was still sick two days later, she took a pregnancy test and it was positive.

What made it even more incredible was that, after severe complications during Evan’s birth, she had been told she couldn’t have any more children.

Mark and Evan adored their baby sister and ‘couldn’t do enough for her.’

Evan called her Rosie, as he decided this was the name she wanted to be called.

Louise believes Evan definitely had a special sense that his sister was coming and also believes he, Sean, Mark, Jodie and her mammy have sent her many signs over the last 10 years.

The first came on the night of their death, when nurses gave Rioghnach a dummy with an elephant picture on it.

“That conversation came about after my granny died. I remember standing with mammy and she was wondering what might be on the ‘other side.’ Mammy said: ‘I wonder if they would show us a sign’ and I asked her what her sign would be. She said if I saw an elephant, it would be her. She loved elephants.”

“No matter where she went, she always got an elephant. I remember, she once brought this massive elephant back from Blackpool one summer and the pilot took it to the front of the plane. She was like: ‘Do not let that get broke.’ It was this big, ceramic elephant and every child that came into the house used to sit on this elephant, under that hall table. So that night, when I walked into the hospital, Rioghnach was lying on the bed, sucking that wee dummy. I saw the dummy and said: ‘Mammy’s here, she’s ok.’”

Her boys and Sean, Louise adds, send her signs in many ways, including through music.

When she needs an answer or guidance, she’ll ask for a song and the lyrics will resonate or a song attached to a fond memory will play.

“I’ve had so many signs. It’s unbelievable.”

She laughs as she tells how her mammy ‘always sent me a priest’.

“Anytime I’d say to mammy that I needed a hug, Fr Paddy (O’Kane) would land at my door. He was so good.”

“When he died, I said: ‘Mammy, I need a hug and now Fr Paddy is gone.’ So, she sent Fr. Joe! They always say how they just felt like they needed to come.”

While 10 years have passed, Louise says their loss ‘feels like it happened yesterday’.

“It stays with you all the time – all the time. It will never go away. It feels like the blink of an eye. It’s so hard to believe and I say: ‘How have I lived this last 10 years without them? I try not to think about that, because then I start to cry. And you lose yourself, then.”

“When you go down that rabbit hole it’s hard to pull yourself out, then. We do get out, but it’s a struggle at times. There are times you don’t want to get out of the house and get dressed, but that’s ok. But, I’m not allowed to stay there.”

Louise says she believes that if Sean or her mammy had not died and she had, they would never have been able to live with it. Sean, she said, would not have survived without the boys, nor her mammy without her children or grandchildren.

“We were always together. I went everywhere with the boys and Jodie and most of the time Mammy and Sean. The only one missing was me. And I know, none of them would have been able to survive without the other.”

Louise adds how she knows Sean ‘thought he had to save someone,’ for her, ‘because if he hadn’t have, I was gone.”

The support she and Rioghnach along with the extended family, have received in Derry, Donegal and even further afield has, she says, been ‘outstanding’.

“The people of Derry are amazing. Even when the accident happened, the support they gave us was so lovely and amazing.”

“This is my way of saying thank you to everyone who supported me – not just me, but also my family, in everything we went through. They’ve also supported us in the fundraisers and our causes for RNLI, not just in Derry, but the whole country. We’ve even had the Irish community in New York reach out.”

“I also want to say a personal thank you to the services. I don’t know each and every one of them but I’ve got to know a few over the years and this is my way of saying thank you for their input on the night. But also, as a thank you to Sean for handing our daughter to Davitt and to Davitt [Walsh] for getting her out and also to Connie and Theresa McIntyre for helping with the rescue of Rioghnach.”

Along with the RNLI, Louise also wants to thank Buncrana Fire Service, Northern Ireland Fire Service, NOWDoc, the Greencastle Coast Guard, Rescue 118, An Garda Siochana, Divisional Controller, Malin Head Coastguard, the multiple ambulances, the undertakers, Donegal County Council marine engineer, and Father John Walsh.

Another person who helped her, personally, she adds, was the late Martin McGuinness.

“We had a little girl, in between the boys, Jessica. Jessica had fluid in her lungs and lived for 17 hours.”

“We had her buried in the Garden of Angels. Martin McGuinness came up to the wakes and said if I needed anything, to give him a ring. I’d no concept of time and rang him one night at 11. He asked what I needed, and I told him I wanted Jessica moved in with her daddy and brothers. He said: ‘done.’”

Martin visited her the next day and began to make arrangements. A few weeks later, he organised an early-morning service in the cemetery and for Jessica to be buried with her daddy and brothers. Louise remains forever grateful.

She also remains grateful to the Lough Swilly RNLI.

“I know they didn’t come home alive, but they came home. As a mammy, I was able to give them a kiss goodnight. I was able to let their friends see them and say goodbye. And all five came home together.”

“The thing for me was, the RNLI wear a pager, 24/7 and it’s voluntary. They put their own lives at risk getting into that water. They have families at home, who are at risk when they get into that water, I know the accident affected a lot of the crew.”

“I remember saying if one is gone, I’m not coming home, if they’re not together. But, thank God, they were. And it’s hard, because they weren’t alive, but they were together.”

There has been huge support for the fundraisers from both businesses and the public. One very kind woman even took a picture of Ruth posted on the Facebook page, which was crumpled and touched it up to make it clearer.

A very large crowd is expected for the walk in Buncrana on March 22. It begins at 11am and Louise would ask those going along to wear something red or white as a tribute, although this is not essential.

A contribution of £10 or £25 per family is kindly suggested. Donations can also be given, even if you’re not taking part in the walk. You can register by visiting Buncrana Pier Tragedy on Facebook and scanning the QR code or clicking on the link https://eventmaster.ie/event/62zZhEpT5G

Pre-registration is advised, but can also be taken on the day.

A Mass will also be held at 7pm on March 20 in Holy Family Church, Ballymagroarty and all are welcome to attend. Louise is also writing a book, which she hopes will be released by the end of the year.

The Gala Ball will be held in The Ebrington Hotel on May 8, which is Ruth’s birthday. Tickets are limited, and to reserve, email: rememberme.life05@gmail.com.

Louise wanted to pay tribute to her mammy by having the ball on her birthday.

“Without her, I wouldn’t be here. I do believe I get my strength from her and the boys. I want people to remember them. I don’t want it to be sad.”

“My boys were so happy. They loved life. My mammy and Sean and Jodie loved life. I want people to remember them in a happy way and smile.”

“I love talking about them, because I have so many happy memories of them. I did everything with them and I don’t want people to ever forget them.”