Twenty-five years after the Greenpeace vessel, ‘Rainbow Warrior’ was blown up by French secret-service agents in Auckland Harbour in New Zealand, Tramore woman Grace O’Sullivan made an emotional journey to Gdansk in Poland last week to witness the keel being laid for Greenpeace’s new ‘Rainbow Warrior III’. One of the keynote speakers at the ceremony, Grace was a crew member of the stricken ‘Rainbow Warrior’ but was not aboard the vessel when the explosion occurred. Unfortunately, her friend and colleague, photographer Fernando Pereira, died when the boat sank. The ship was attacked to prevent the crew from sailing out and interfering with a French nuclear test in Moruroa. The atrocity was one of the big news stories of 1985 and Grace O’Sullivan and her colleagues were catapulted into the glare of the world media. When Grace returned to Ireland she received a heroine’s welcome.
