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Tourist killed in Kerry beach accident

ANNE LUCEY

A POSTMORTEM was carried out yesterday on the body of an American woman tourist who was killed on the beach at Inch in Dingle bay on Saturday morning.

The woman, named as Gena Hill (59), from Kentucky, was one of the organisers of a group of American tourists who were staying in the Killarney Valley Hotel in Fossa, outside Killarney.

The party was on its way for a day tour to Dingle and had stopped at Inch, one of Kerry’s finest blue-flag beaches and the setting for some of the most memorable scenes of the 1970 David Lean film Ryan’s Daughter  .

The dramatically located beach on Dingle Bay is a popular surfing area because of the strength of its waves that crash on to the three-mile strand.

The woman had been standing on the strand at the edge of the water shortly after 10am when struck by a truck used to transport surfing equipment.

It is understood the truck was reversing on to the beach with the equipment.

Ms Hill’s husband was among the party on the tour.

The issue of cars and trucks regularly going on to the strand at Inch, a popular walking area, has been controversial and vehicles are generally banned under bylaws. However, it is understood the truck involved had a valid council permit to ferry equipment on and off the strand.

Ms Hill, a grandmother, was pronounced dead at the scene. Her body was removed to Kerry General Hospital.

The local parish priest in Fossa, Fr Brendan Harrington, visited the tour members at their hotel on Saturday and there were prayers for the dead woman and her family at the weekly vigil mass at the Prince of Peace Church on Saturday.

Supt Michael O’Donovan of Cahersiveen gardaí, who is leading the investigation into the death, said the scene had remained sealed off until yesterday for technical examination.

Ms Hill is the third American tourist to die tragically in a popular tourist spot in Kerry in two years. In 2009, in separate incidents, two American tourists died after falling at the Skellig Michael monastic site off the Iveragh peninsula.

Separately, a coastal community was said to be devastated yesterday by the death of a man in a boating incident.

There were tributes to Johnny Curry from Rathlin Island, who died after apparently falling overboard at the beauty spot off Co Antrim. Coastguard officials said they believed the accident may have been caused by a rope becoming tangled in his boat’s propeller.