ONE of the most distinguished of Irish coxswains, John Boyle, of Arranmore, died on the 5th of September, 1949, at the age of 57. He served as an officer of the life-boat for 23 years, as bow- man from 1926 to 1928, and then as coxswain until his death, 21 years later.

He was one of the seven coxswains who won the gold medal for conspicuous gallantry during the war of 1939 to 1945 when, on the 7th of December, 1940, he rescued 18 of the crew of the Dutch steamer Stolwijk, of Rotterdam, one of a convoy of ships from America which had come through three days of a rising north-westerly gale and was making for the passage between Scot- land and Ulster (at that stage of the war the only remaining entrance to British ports) in a hurricane of wind and snow..