Cian and Tiarnan O’Grady pictured with the bottle and message they discovered washed in on the beach at Cullenstown
TWO WEXFORD teenagers made a remarkable discovery on a local beach last week when they found a message in a bottle that had spent the last year-and-a-half travelling 3,000 miles across the Atlantic Ocean.
Cousins, Cian and Tiarnan O’Grady (both 15), came across the bottle while beach combing on Cullenstown Strand in the wake of Storm Frank.
The message inside was written by Ken and Suzanne Baker, from Scituate, a coastal town in Plymouth County, Massachusetts, which is often referred to as the most Irish town in America.
The bottle was the 79th one the Bakers threw into the sea since December 2012.
Cian and Tiarnan are regulars down on the beach in Cullenstown – just a short distance from Cian’s house.
They were delighted to find the bottle and when the Echo spoke to Cian and his parents, Colm and Regina, at their home it became apparent that the message-in-a-bottle story had a number of twists and turns.
One of the most remarkable and coincidental aspects to the story is that Mrs. Baker’s surname is Grady meaning the bottled message that travelled halfway across the world was placed in the sea in America by a Grady and recovered from the sea in Ireland by an O’Grady!
“The chances of us both having such similar names is remarkable,” Mr. O’Grady told the Echo.
Among the other coincidences relating to the story are that Mr. O’Grady and Mr. Baker are both of a similar age, they both enjoy kayaking, and have an active interest in fishing.
The Baker’s son, Ryan, is also 15 – the same age as Cian and Tiarnan!
While there have been some instances of bottles washing in at Cullenstown it’s something that doesn’t happen too often.
That fact was highlighted by Cian who said: “We don’t get too many bottles washing in with messages and for us to find one like this was great.”
His father replied to the email address contained in the message from the Bakers and said that the two families have been in regular contact since.
“Their children like going to haunted houses so I told them about Loftus Hall and they looked it up and said it’s fascinating,” Mr. O’Grady told the Echo.
The Bakers also expressed admiration for Cullenstown after they viewed photographs of the area emailed over to them.
Mr. O’Grady said the remarkable incident is something that is unlikely to happen again – especially with regard to the names.
“It hasn’t happened to us before and probably won’t happen again for a very long time, if at all,” he said.
The bottle found by Cian and Tiarnan was the first one thrown in by the Bakers in America to be found on this side of the Atlantic.
It entered the sea on July 25, 2014, at the end of the breakwater at the mouth of Scituate Harbor – around 3,000 miles from Cullenstown!
