Friends have paid tribute to actor and retired Anglican cleric Roger Grainger who drowned on Achill Island on Sunday night after unwittingly driving into a flash flood.
In a long career Mr Grainger (82) featured in such television dramas as ‘Last of the Summer Wine’ and ‘Heartbeat’.
He died at the village of Dugort at about 10pm on Sunday after driving into floodwaters as he drove home from visiting friends.
Mayo County Councillor Paul McNamara was among the motorists who tried to rescue him from his overturned car which was trapped in a swirling current.
“The water was about five feet high”, Mr McNamara said. “I got a life-jacket and waded out but there was nothing I could do. He was pronounced dead at the scene”.
“I have never seen floods like it”, Mr McNamara said. “They are the worst locally in living memory.
“We are very sad over what happened to Roger. He was very popular. The community is numbed by the tragic manner of his passing,” he said.
The accident occurred as a heavy rainstorm lashed the west Mayo coastline and sent water cascading off Slievemore Mountain close to where Mr Grainger, set up home a year ago. He previously lived near Newport.
The actor was making his way home from visiting friends, John and Elizabeth Barrett, who run a guesthouse in Keel..
“There was no way of knowing when he left that the roads were as bad as they were in Dugort”, his friend of four decades Mr Barrett said . “When he went down the hill into Dugort he drove straight into the water”.
As well as acting over the years, Mr Grainger had described himself as a “registered counselling pyschologist”. At the time of his death the retired academic was working on his 8th doctorate and 26th book, according to Mr Barrett.
Mr Barrett recalled him as “one of the world’s everyman, a multi-talented, energetic figure. There just wasn’t enough hours in the day as far as he was concerned”.
Another friend , Westport based Church of Ireland Rector Rev Val Rogers, described Mr Grainger as “ a person of perpetual motion” . “I first came to know Roger about a year ago. He had a great love for the west of Ireland and Achill in particular,” he said.
Gardaí are investigating all circumstances surrounding the incident .
