THE FAMILY OF the three Co Waterford brothers who died at sea on Wednesday afternoon have asked sympathisers to make donations to the RNLI in lieu of family flowers.

Notices included in the death notices for Shane, Paul and Kenneth Bolger advise mourners to make donations to the RNLI, with flowers sought only by members of the Bolger family.

RNLI volunteers and lifeboats based at Dunmore East were involved in the recovery of the remains of two of the three brothers after they were reported missing on Wednesday afternoon when their fishing punt failed to return home.

The third brother was recovered by a coastguard search and rescue helicopter based in Waterford.

The thee brothers will repose at a funeral home in Waterford from this afternoon, with removal tomorrow afternoon to St John the Baptist Church in Crooke for a funeral mass at 1pm. They will be buried afterwards at Faithlegg Cemetery.

It has meanwhile emerged that a fourth Bolger brother would ordinarily have been travelling with the three deceased, but was not at sea because of a recent operation.

The presence of the fourth brother would usually mean the quartet would set out in two separate boats – but Anthony’s absence meant Kenneth, Paul and Shane had travelled in the same vessel when they went to move lobster pots on Wednesday.

The alarm was raised when other fishermen noticed that the brothers’ 18-foot punt had been out for longer than expected, with no sign of an imminent return.

It is reported that postmortem examinations on the three deceased showed that each had died from a combination of hypothermia and drowning.

Donations to the RNLI can be made through its website.

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