An individual who died in the 1968 Tuskar Rock plane crash before receiving his master’s degree has been posthumously presented with his qualification by University College Cork (UCC), over 50 years after the misfortune. Michael Cowhig, a Kilbrittain, Co Cork local, was making his way to a conference in Reading, England, by boarding Aer Lingus Flight 712 that ill-fatedly crashed in the sea near Tuskar Rock, Co Wexford. The crash claimed 61 lives, taking down every passenger and crew member aboard.
Before the unfortunate event, Mr Cowhig, alongside John Nyhan and Thomas Dwane, fellow employees at the Agricultural Research Institute based in Moorepark, Fermoy (now Teagasc), had planned to present their research on milking machine systems at the conference. Mr Cowhig had submitted a thesis to UCC for his masters just prior to the accident. However, the procedure to bestow the degree was delayed following his death until recently when his family sought to have his thesis reconsidered.
The memoir of Tom Raftery, Mr Cowhig’s former guide and a retired professor and one-time MEP, relayed that Mr Cowhig’s thesis was indeed greenlit for the award of the master’s degree at that time. Following this revelation, Professor Alan Kelly, head of UCC’s food and nutritional sciences department, re-evaluated Mr Cowhig’s thesis and advocated that the university honour it with a master’s degree. The respective university committees confirmed this proposition.
Describing Mr Cowhig’s work as possessing a superior scientific quality and as an important historical account of novel farming technology in Ireland, Prof Kelly asserted that they would readily confer the award if such a thesis were to be submitted today.
On Friday, at a specially arranged ceremony in UCC, Professor John O’Halloran, the President of UCC, presented the master’s degree to the family of Mr Cowhig in the presence of various family members, friends and ex-colleagues.
The Cowhig family, in an announcement, expressed their deep gratitude to UCC for their diligence in acknowledging the significance of their late father’s studies. They also commended Teagasc and Tom Raftery for persisting for years to ensure their father was duly recognised. The family confessed to feeling immense pride for their father’s accomplishments accomplished during his brief existence. Furthermore, they expressed joy at being invited to the awards ceremony along with several of his ex-coworkers and comrades, the family conveyed.