PAT and Mary Murphy’s home in Castletownbere overlooks the town’s busy fishing harbour, its waters literally lapping at their back door.

While the town’s fishing industry is now facing an uncertain future, it’s down to men like Pat whose hard work and determination were responsible for building it from scratch and transforming Castletownbere into Ireland’s leading fishing port.

Now in their late 90s - Pat is 97 and Mary 98 - they are a couple inherently proud of their family and how the sea has been part of their life.

One of a family of four, Pat left school aged 12 to fish with his father. ‘We caught pollock in the summer, and in the winter it was scallops. It was hard work then as there was no engines or hauler machinery on the boats, there was a lot of heavy lifting and hauling and rowing.’

Mary, from a family of seven, was from the nearby townland of Rossmacowen. She spent four years working in New York before returning home to Beara. ‘It’s always nice to come home,’ she said.

She had known Pat before she went to New York having met him at a local dance, when she returned the couple married, and went on to have five children.

Pat spent 22 years working with the Commissioners of Irish Lights, first based on the Irish Lights vessel Velonia Ierne for 11 years, a 90ft wooden boat with one engine.

The Velonia was replaced by a steel riveted boat, the Ierne, which had two steam engines. Pat worked in the engine room and was in charge of the team of greasers and firemen, followed by another 11 years on the Velonia.

‘It was hard work,’ he recalled. ‘You were on call 24 hours a day, seven days a week. If something happened on one of the lighthouses of the south-west coast, you had to be ready to go at a moment’s notice.’

It was hard on Mary too at home with the children. ‘I was here on my own, there were no phones that time so I never had any way of contacting Pat when he was away,’ she explained.

When he left the Irish Lights, Pat went back fishing, ‘It was the only life I knew,’ he shrugged. He talks fondly of the fishing industry of that time, very different from the current state of the sector.

‘It’s finished now, and we are an island nation, we shouldn’t be in the situation we are in now,’ he said, referring to the recent EU decision to further reduce Ireland’s quota.

In 1971, Pat was the first to fish for shrimps in Bere Haven. He explains how shrimp had been fished using pots in Baltimore, and the O’Reilly boats in Schull trawled for shrimp, but nobody realised that there was any shrimp north of the Fastnet.

There was no buyer of shrimp in Castletownbere, at that time, so Pat had to store the shrimp and deliver to Declan Croke in Baltimore each week. Shrimp is now an important catch in each of the bays in West Cork and Kerry.

Up to 12 small boats from Castletownbere and Bere Island now fish shrimp according to Pat, as ‘they are in Bere Haven each year. Shrimp is one of the very few remaining species which are not subject to EU quotas.’

In 1984, with his son Richard, Pat set up Shellfish Ireland, now one of the country’s leading seafood companies. He attributes his family’s support with the success the company has enjoyed.

‘I couldn’t have done it if it wasn’t for my family.’ Pat recounts how some years ago when he was at the local day care centre in Castletownbere a man credited him with giving him employment.

‘I’d never met this man before,’ he revealed. ‘He was telling me how he was originally from Castletownbere but had left to seek work in London. He wanted to come back to Ireland, but he couldn’t get work anywhere.

‘Someone told him to try Shellfish Ireland, he did and he was given work straight away and when I was talking to him he had been with the company for five years.

‘He wanted to thank me for giving him employment.’

The company is now one of the biggest employers in the Beara Peninsula.

Although still very much involved in the company, Pat has had to give up his own fishing trips even though his small boat is still moored outside his house.

‘I was told by my doctor not to go out fishing on my own,’ he explained. ‘I must have someone with me now.’ He adds hopefully: ‘If I could find someone to go with me I would.’ Mary adds that while she went on an occasional fishing trip, she much preferred to stay on dry land.

Looking forward to the Christmas season, the couple say they will be visited by their children and 17 grandchildren and plan to watch some Christmas television, particularly Irish programmes says Pat.

‘I have a great respect for Irish made television there is plenty of Irish talent out there.’

Looking back Pat reflects: ‘I had to work hard all my life, you can’t live in the wind, but it’s work for a young man. Fishing is hard work, but I enjoyed it. I never went to college or got formal qualifications, but I tried to make up for it with what I had have just as much, if not more between my ears.’