FOUR people were rescued in Castletownbere's inner harbour last night by the local RNLI crew.

​At 8.45pm, as the crew were coming back into the inner harbour from training, as part of their regular Wednesday night exercises, a fishing boat left the pier to go across to Dinish Island and hit Red Perch Rock, which caused the vessel to take on water.

Under coxswain Marnie O'Donoghue, the lifeboat crew took three of the casualties, who were on the stern of the 13m trawler, and one casualty, who was in a life raft, on board.

Conditions were calm and the lifeboat crew reported that they handed over a salvage pump, but the boat was sinking very quickly, so they took the four crew men to the lifeboat station, where they were reported to be 'safe and well,' but the vessel sank on site.