A life under the sea: Kilkee's Manuel Di Lucia dives into the past with new memoir

There’s few in Clare or Limerick who don’t know the name of Manuel Di Lucia.

He features in some of my earliest memories of Kilkee, wearing a thick diving wetsuit and standing in the Pollock Holes, surrounded by a crowd of children he’s teaching to dive and snorkel.

“I have a drawer there full of letters and cards from kids who I taught, I kept them all,” he remembers fondly, as we sit in the sun-soaked conservatory of his home, overlooking the coast just north of Kilkee.

Di Lucia might not sound like your typical Kilkee name, but, as Manuel (a little indignantly) points out to me, it, and he, have been a part of Kilkee for 83 years. Born in Belfast in 1940, his parents moved there when he was just 6 months old to take over the lease of a chipper owned by his mother’s uncle.

He’s been an integral part of the west Clare resort since, having worked as a fisherman, lifeguard, restaurant owner, diver, and founder of the Kilkee Marine Rescue Centre.

Manuel di Lucia, outside his seafood restuarant in Corbally, Kilkee, August 1981

It’s those last two roles that serve as the backbone of his new book ‘You Only Live Once’ - launched in Ennis on June 14 - about his years working in rescue and recovery all along the Clare coastline.

A keen diver since his youth, Manuel was often called on by the gardaí to help in recovering bodies from the sea, in the days long before any rescue service existed in Kilkee.

“Back in the 70s, there were a lot of people getting lost here from standing on the rocks, getting washed into the sea. There was hardly ever a swimmer that got drowned in the bay, because it’s so safe, but it was people falling off cliffs and rocks,” he explains.

It was one such tragedy in particular, when he had to “hunt around” for a boat to search for two apprentices from Moneypoint who had driven off the cliffs on a motorbike in the dark, that led Manuel to set up the Kilkee Marine Rescue Service in 1982.

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“I said to myself ‘this isn’t good enough, I’ll have to do something’, so I set off to set up a rescue service.”

The book grew out of long conversations reminiscing with friends. Working with one in particular, retired primary school principal and writer Kevin Haugh, Manuel put not only his memory to use but also the 60 years worth of press clippings he’s collected in four huge scrapbooks.

“From way back in 1958/1959, I have been collecting press releases and all that, and they contain all that information, photographs and everything about what I did; lives saved, bodies recovered, things I did in the town.”

With his distinctive moustache, Manuel is instantly recognisable in the clippings. Another famous face that also jumps out frequently is of course Richard Harris, a frequent visitor to Kilkee and “a great buddy of mine”.

The late Hollywood legend figures in some of the happier memories in the book, which focuses primarily on rescues and recoveries Manuel has taken part in over the years.

Competing in the Tivoli Cup Racquets Competition in 1970 were Hollywood icon Richard Harris and Mary O'Connor, on the right, and Kilkee Marine Search and Rescue founder Manuel Di Lucia with a Miss Kennedy from Limerick|PhotographerThomas Byrne from the collection of Manuel De Lucia

One particularly tragic incident that features is that of nine children who were lost when a boat carrying too many people capsized in Newquay in north Clare on June 29, 1969.

“You could cut the atmosphere up there with a spoon,” Manuel tells me as we look over clippings of that sad day.

“You have a job to do, and you do the job, and within you, you would have this grief, but you can’t express it.

“We only extracted a certain amount of stuff from the four scrapbooks, mainly stories about bodies I have recovered and all the trauma that you’d go through when you’re looking for somebody like that.”

These scrapbooks are almost as impressive as the career they document. As I flick through them during our conversation, Manuel points out that they contain not only his history, but “the history of diving in Clare.”

‘You Only Live Once’ is now on sale in the Kilkee Dive Centre, and the RNLI shop in Kilrush, and in shops in both towns. All proceeds from the sale of the book will go to RNLI Lifeboats at Kilrush Lifeboat Station and the West Clare Cancer Centre, Kilkee.