Son buys old Clifden lifeboat after hearing coxswain dad’s rescue stories

By Mella Walsh

A Galway teenager was so enthralled by his dad’s story of almost three decades of service with Clifden RNLI, that – when the old lifeboat came up for sale – he and his three little brothers pooled all their savings to buy the boat!

James Mullen was a Coxswain at Clifden RNLI with over 27 years voluntary service saving lives at sea on the west coast of Ireland – and he and wife Siobhán also a proud dad to four boys who have inherited their father’s remarkable passion for the sea, the RNLI…and everything to do with boats.

It was this shared passion which inspired James’ 14-year-old son Ronan to track down and buy the very first lifeboat his father helmed back in 1996.

James claims to not have a favourite child, but he does have a favourite boat – the C-class 522 inshore lifeboat which was stationed in Clifden between 1989 and 1997.

The boat holds so many memories for him as a teenage RNLI recruit – and when his sons would ask him for the history of the station and his favourite lifeboat, the stories he told them always came back to the C-class.

James, who lives with his family on Sky Road in Clifden, joined the volunteer crew of Clifden RNLI in 1994, and he is currently Helm on the Atlantic 85 Inshore Lifeboat, Coxswain on the new Shannon Class All Weather Lifeboat and Lifeboat Training Co-ordinator. He has also worked as a paramedic for 21 years with the National Ambulance Service HSE West.

“I loved the sea, I had lived beside it my whole life and now finally, at 17 years old and with my parent’s consent, I was lifeboat crew,” he says.

Read the full story in this week’s Connacht Tribune, on sale in shops now – or you can download the digital edition from www.connachttribune.ie