On a miserable winter’s night, Thursday, the 10th of January 1952, Ireland suffered her first-ever national air disaster. The Saint Kevin along with a sister-ship became embroiled in ‘the perfect storm’ whilst travelling the valleys & hills of North Wales. Aer Lingus was then in her 16th year of operations and had only recently been declared the world’s safest airline.
The story of the loss of Saint Kevin has never been told before. Now two-thirds-of-a-century later, ‘Shamrock 165’ looks back at the events of that evening. What brought these persons to that specific point in the continuum of time and space? What were the true causal factors that predicated the disaster – a systematic chain of unlucky events that were to prove to be unpropitious for the then-newest airship in the National Airline’s fleet? ‘The Saint Kevin Project’, explores what really unfolded on that horrific night in the skies above the majestic Snowdonia National Park.
In January, Volume 3 of the Shamrock 165 series will be published. The author, Gavin Walsh, launched Volume 3 at a private event in Wales in September with families of the victims and surviving witnesses of the accident. The three volumes examine the flawed investigation into the accident evidenced by over 10,000 interviews and 12,000 documents sourced over 13 years. The author has recently published the video below explaining the background of the book and includes footage from the book launch in September. More details are available from www.saintkevin1952.com
