Lifeboat honour for drowned youth

The inshore lifeboat was funded by local donations

The parents of a teenager who drowned after being swept out to sea off the County Down coast have presented a new lifeboat for the area in his memory.

Jordan Murdock, 14, fell into the sea at Killough pier on 11 January and was pulled under water by the current.

Hundreds of people turned up for the event on Saturday, among them teenager David Hackett who had tried desperately to save Jordan.

The keys to the new inshore lifeboat were presented by Jordan's mother to the Boyne Search and Rescue Team, many of whom were present every day of the three-week search for his body.

A plaque commemorating Jordan was also unveiled as was a new lifebelt to replace the one vandalised before Jordan drowned.

Cheques were also presented to the RNLI and Dundalk rescue from the money raised during the three weeks that Jordan was lost.

A woman walking her dog found his body at the beginning of February, near an old sewage pipe, a short distance from where he had disappeared.

Jordan had moved to Killough with his family from south Belfast last year.

Coastguards said the search for the teenager, which involved all the emergency services, community volunteers and divers, was the biggest ever of its kind in Northern Ireland.