The monument to Air India victims in Ireland. The monument is a sundial facing the ocean and behind the sundial are the names of 329 victims.
Every year, family members of the 329 people who were killed on Air India Flight 182 make a pilgrimage to a semi-rural corner of Ireland's rugged south coast, the closest piece of land to the spot where the jet came crashing into the sea.
And every year, the locals of the Sheep's Head peninsula are there to host them and join in a memorial service at water's edge on the anniversary of the disaster.
"The Irish hospitality we have seen is something we cannot forget in this lifetime - all the support and comfort," said Narayana (Babu) Turlapati, a Toronto accountant, on Thursday. "I don't think we would have had this kind of support if the plane had fallen anywhere else in the world."
Both of his sons, 14-year-old Sanjay and Deepak, 11, were en route to visit their grandparents when they were killed. Sanjay's body was recovered; Deepak was never found. Mr. Turlapati and his wife, Padmini, spend two weeks in the area nearly every year and visit with the locals.
"We come and sit and look at the ocean, and maybe our son is looking back at us," he said. "We just forget about the world."
The thread that connects families in Canada and India to this rocky headland, about 100 kilometres southwest of Cork, was forged soon after the bombing on June 23, 1985, when the local council erected a monument to the dead at Ahakista, a hamlet on Sheep's Head.
Unveiled a year after the disaster, it is centred on a large sundial, angled so its shadow points in the direction of the crash site every year on the anniversary.
Michael Murphy, who helped supervise the monument's construction and maintenance for the country council, compares the yearly visitors to "extra family."
"I looked after it and I got very close with the families. We're very, very friendly," he said. He'll be having the Turlapatis over for drinks at his house Friday night and billeting other families.
In gratitude, several relatives of the victims pool their money into scholarships for teens from the area's secondary schools. This year, they will present four €200 awards.
Gary Bass, the head of the RCMP in British Columbia, reconnects every year with his Irish counterparts, with whom he forged lasting friendships while investigating the case. He says the sheer size of the disaster left an impression on them all.
"The magnitude of the case, the enormity of the tragedy is something that's difficult to grasp," he said.
This year, 30 relatives of victims are expected. Most years, just three or four families of the victims join the locals for the service.
They observe a minute of silence at 8:12 a.m., the moment in local time when the plane went down, followed by prayers. Afterwards, locals serve a spread of tea, scones and apple tarts, a tradition dating back to the first memorial in 1986.
Beyond hospitality, John Connolly, mayor of nearby Bantry, hints at another reason the locals feel such kinship with the families of the victims.
"If that particular plane had been seven minutes sooner, it could have fallen down in a town near here," he said.
Adrian Morrow