Nearly six decades after an Aer Lingus plane plunged off the southeast coast of Ireland in a disaster that killed all 61 people on board, 78-year-old Dezy Walls is launching a campaign for answers by staging a play about the father he lost at age 19, the Irish Independent reported.
The tragedy unfolded on March 24, 1968, when a Vickers Viscount 803 aircraft named St Phelim disappeared en route from Cork to London. Despite a two-year investigation, air traffic controllers receiving an emergency call heard nothing further from Pilot Bernard O’Beirne and First Officer Paul Heffernan, and authorities never determined a precise cause for the crash.
Dezy Walls was a 19-year-old student at University College Cork when his father, Desmond Walls—then operations manager at the Whitegate Oil Refinery—died in the disaster. Their final conversation had been marked by youthful tension over socialising, ending when Dezy slammed the family car door and walked away. His remains were never recovered from the sea.
To process the loss and reconcile those lingering scars, Dezy wrote the play Searching For Daddly-Dee. Initially intended as a cathartic tool for his extended family, the production resonated deeply with audiences and won an IMRO award for Drama of the Year.
Now, that personal project has grown into a public crusade. Dezy will host the opening staging of the play in Kenmare on Saturday, November 7, kicking off a campaign designed to ramp up pressure on the Irish Government. The initiative will run from March 24—the 59th anniversary of the disaster—through March 2028, marking the 60th anniversary.
The campaign arrives alongside fresh calls from experts for a state review. Dr Catryn Power, a retired Cork County Archaeologist, anthropologist, and author, warned that Ireland owes it to the victims to apply modern technology to the case before the 60th anniversary.
| Key Milestone / Detail | Historical Fact / Event Date |
|---|---|
| The Air Disaster | March 24, 1968 |
| Total Fatalities | 61 people (36 from the Cork area) |
| Bodies Recovered | 14 bodies found near Tuskar Rock |
| Play Opening in Kenmare | Saturday, November 7 |
| 60th Anniversary Target | March 2028 |
Dr Power pointed out that modern acoustic and magnetic equipment, such as advanced magnetometers developed in Irish universities, can locate small amounts of metal on the seabed. She argued that remotely operated submersibles could retrieve remaining wreckage for forensic examination.
Over the decades, theories surrounding the disaster have ranged from an errant missile and bird strikes to metal fatigue. A 2002 international report by French and Australian experts ruled out missiles or mid-air collisions, pointing instead to the likely failure of the left tail-plane due to metal fatigue.
Only 14 bodies were ever recovered from the waters near Tuskar Rock. For families like the Walls, the lack of definitive answers has left a painful vacuum, driven by decades of silence and shifting rumors.
