Martha Nolan-O'Slatarra

Martha Nolan-O'Slatarra, known professionally and to friends simply as Martha Nolan, was an Irish-born fashion entrepreneur who built a swimwear and resortwear brand in New York before she was found dead on a yacht in Montauk at the age of 33. She grew up in Carlow, Ireland, in the Monacurragh area, and emigrated to the United States in 2015 to pursue a career in fashion, eventually settling on Manhattan's Upper East Side while spending her summers working the Hamptons social and retail circuit.

In the years that followed she built several overlapping ventures. With business partner Dylan Grace she founded East x East, a sustainable swimwear, sunglasses and resortwear label built around the idea that a product line could move between city and coast. She also started an Amazon-based label called Duper, worked as director of operations for the investment firm K4 Capital Management, and ran a consultancy called Brand Growth Consultants. East x East grew a loyal social media following and, in the weeks before her death, celebrated what she called on social media a milestone pop-up shop at Gurney's Montauk Resort and Seawater Spa, a sign of the brand's rising profile in the Hamptons.

Privately, Nolan-O'Slatarra had recently gone through a divorce before her death, and at the time she died she was in a relationship with Nick DiRubio, who later spoke at her funeral. Her mother, Elma, and sister, Jacqui, remained in Carlow, and she kept close ties to friends and family in Ireland even as her career took root in New York.

She died in the early hours of August 5, 2025, after being found unconscious aboard a 54-foot boat called the Ripple, docked at the Montauk Yacht Club in East Hampton, New York. The vessel belonged to Christopher Durnan, a businessman and investor she had reportedly gone to meet about possible funding for East x East. A 911 call brought police shortly before midnight, and bystanders attempted CPR before she was pronounced dead at the scene. Suffolk County's homicide squad opened an investigation, though police later said an autopsy found no evidence of violence.

The circumstances of her death drew sustained press attention because, more than a year on, the Suffolk County Medical Examiner's office still had not publicly released a final cause and manner of death. A private autopsy commissioned by her family found only trace amounts of cocaine in her system, which a family spokesperson said was not enough to explain her death. No charges have been filed against anyone. Her family buried her in Carlow in August 2025 and later filed a fifty million dollar wrongful death lawsuit against Durnan, who denies responsibility through his attorney. That litigation remains active as of this writing, and the questions her family and the public have about how she died remain, for now, unanswered.