A German man was last night spending his second night in hospital with abdominal injuries following a collision with a dolphin off the Co Clare coast on Sunday evening.
The incident with the 41-year-old tourist yesterday prompted Clare County Council's water safety development officer, Liam Griffin, to issue a fresh warning not to swim with the female bottle-nosed dolphin.
"Any incident that requires hospital treatment is serious and the man could have been in very, very serious trouble if he had been struck any harder by the dolphin," he said.
The man is in a stable condition at Ennis General Hospital.
The incident took place off the coast near the west Clare village of Miltown Malbay. Mr Griffin confirmed that the dolphin was the same one that had been attracting crowds off the north Clare coast at Fanore for the past four summers.
Chairman of the Irish Whale and Dolphin Group Dr Simon Berrow yesterday said incidents with the dolphin included swimmers being rammed at speed, brought out to open water, butted in the ribs and face or pinned to the seabed.
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