Recollecting a Tragedy: 75 years ago on Achill

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Prayer

75 years on we remember the departed, ask comfort for those who were bereaved, and give thanks for those who responded to the tragedy at the time.

We pray God's mercy, healing, and peace on all who were affected by the disaster.




With gratitude to Sean Molloy, What’s On In Achill, who published this account and photo, below, on Monday 16 June, 2025.

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𝟕𝟓 𝐘𝐞𝐚𝐫𝐬 𝐀𝐠𝐨 𝐓𝐨𝐝𝐚𝐲 - 𝐑𝐀𝐅 𝐇𝐚𝐥𝐢𝐟𝐚𝐱 𝐂𝐫𝐚𝐬𝐡 𝐨𝐟 𝟏𝟗𝟓𝟎 𝐨𝐧 𝐀𝐜𝐡𝐢𝐥𝐥 𝐈𝐬𝐥𝐚𝐧𝐝
On the afternoon of June 16, 1950, the island of Achill lay wrapped in a thick grey shawl of fog, the kind that rolls in off the Atlantic with little warning and settles low into the mountains like a secret. In the village of Dooagh, 15-year-old John ‘Twin’ McNamara was helping his grandfather, Pat Charlie O’Malley, on the bog. The land was quiet, blanketed in silence save for the occasional bleat of a sheep or the distant crash of waves on Keel Strand. Nobody could have imagined the horror that was about to unfold above them on Croaghan Mountain.
At 4.30pm, through the mist and cloud cover, a rumbling broke the silence. John and his grandfather paused. “You couldn’t see your finger that day,” John would later recall. The sound was low and unsettling, a deep rolling thunder across the mountain. Pat Charlie muttered, “That’s another breach of Croaghan gone.” They thought it was another landslide. Just a few years before, a massive slip had torn through the mountain’s upper slopes. But this was no landslide.


A Routine Mission Ends in Tragedy
Earlier that day, a Handley Page Halifax VIII, tail number RG843, had lifted off from RAF Aldergrove in Belfast. Operated by 202 Squadron of the Royal Air Force, the eight-man crew was tasked with a meteorological reconnaissance flight over the Atlantic. Their mission was uneventful — a routine survey flight completed west of the Kerry coast. They reported their work finished and began the return journey, bound again for Belfast.
But as the aircraft crossed back over the west of Ireland, the weather turned. Fog began to thicken as they neared Achill Island. Their last communication placed them to the southwest of Shannon, but in reality, the bomber was 148 nautical miles ahead of that position, heading straight into the rising mass of Croaghan — the highest point on Achill.
Flying blind in near-zero visibility and unaware of their true location, the Halifax never stood a chance.


The Crash on Croaghan
The aircraft struck the side of Croaghan Mountain at around 180 miles per hour. The impact tore through the bomber’s heavy frame. The fuselage split in two, pieces thrown across 800 yards of mountainside. An inflatable dinghy exploded from its stowage, landing nearby. The twisted wreck was hidden by the fog. Nobody saw it fall.
In the village, people dismissed the noise as distant thunder.
But one man, Martin Fadian, was working with his animals near the slopes of Croaghan and sensed that something was wrong. As the fog swirled, he began to climb. Not long after, he came upon the wreckage — charred metal, splintered debris, and silence. He ran back towards Dooagh and raised the alarm.


The Nighttime Rescue
At 11.30pm, a search party set out. Led by local man Martin, the group included Dr Edward King, Sergeant John Harvey, two Gardaí, and Fr Clarke, the parish priest. They ascended the mountain in darkness and fog. At 12.30am, they came upon the main wreckage. Five bodies were found, one badly burned. Three more remained hidden just thirty yards away, but so poor was the visibility that it took nearly eight more hours to locate them.
The dead were:
• Pilot Ernest George Hopgood
• Co-pilot Michael William Horsley
• Navigator Joseph Kevin Brown
• Engineer Harold Shaw
• Signaller Cornelius Joseph Rogan
• Air Gunner Martin Gilmartin
• Observer James Charles Lister
• Airman Bernard Francis McKenna, originally from Navan, Co. Meath
Their parachutes were used as coverings. Soldiers and locals formed stretcher parties and began the slow, dangerous descent. “We had only four to each stretcher,” one Mayo News correspondent recalled. “The descent was slow and tortuous… Yard by yard we crept and sliddered on our way.”
The bodies were brought to Dooagh’s People’s Hall, a place of dance and community now transformed into a temporary morgue. The inquest was held that evening. Dr King confirmed all deaths had been instantaneous. The cause: shock and multiple injuries from the crash.


Aftermath and Memory
In the following days, thousands came to Achill to see the site. Army personnel from Renmore Barracks took over the recovery. Reporters described the carnage on the mountain — sheared-off ledges, craters where the plane had hit, mangled girders, and the split fuselage. Oddly, the tailpiece still bore its red, white, and blue markings, almost untouched.
An RAF investigation quickly dismissed rumours of engine trouble. The aircraft had flown directly into Croaghan’s slopes, unaware of its true position. One RAF expert said the crash was so sudden and violent that even boots and clothing were ripped from the men’s bodies.
Local stories swirled in the aftermath. John McNamara and his brother Pat would sometimes shelter in the remaining tail of the plane. One day, they found a man sitting silently inside, unmoving, ghostlike. It wasn’t a spirit of the dead, but a fugitive — a Dublin man hiding out after robbing a jeweller. He had taken to sleeping in the wreckage, hidden in plain sight in the mountains.
Over the months that followed, scavengers took much of the wreckage. Scrap merchants carried off what they could. But even today, the four massive engines remain on the slopes of Croaghan — moss-covered and rusting, a ghostly reminder of that tragic summer’s day.


Legacy
The crash of the RAF Halifax on Achill Island remains one of the most haunting aviation disasters in Irish history. Eight young men — professionals, friends, sons — lost their lives in a remote and unfamiliar land. For the people of Achill, their memory lingered not only in the wreckage but in the community’s swift and heartfelt response. May they Rest In Peace
Sean Molloy, What’s On In Achill







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