Ireland

Body recovered from sea off Co Clare confirmed to be boy who went missing at Cliffs of Moher

Body seen in water by occupants of pleasure craft at about 10am

The boy had gone missing at the Cliffs of Moher on Tuesday. Photograph: Jeremy Toye
Pat Flynn
Sun Jul 28 2024 - 12:14

A body recovered from the sea off Co Clare has been confirmed to be the boy who went missing at the Cliffs of Moher on Tuesday.

A Garda representative said the search for the boy has been stood down following the recovery of the body. “A file will now be prepared for the coroner,” it said.

The Coast Guard extended it condolences to the family and friends of the deceased.

At about 10am today, the occupants of a pleasure craft reported seeing something in the water off the Clare coast around 2km north of Doolin from where the Garda-led search was being co-ordinated. The skipper of the boat immediately raised the alarm.

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Watch officers at the Irish Coast Guard’s marine rescue co-ordination centre in Kerry alerted the Doolin unit of the service as well as the RNLI and Garda. Doolin Coast Guard launched their Delta rigid inflatable boat (rib) while the RNLI dispatched its all-weather lifeboat based at Kilronan on Inis Mór.

On arriving at the location provided to them, Doolin Coast Guard personnel located the boy’s body.

With the assistance of RNLI volunteers, the remains were taken on board the Doolin Delta boat and recovered to Doolin Pier. The body was then taken to the nearby Coast Guard station. The RNLI lifeboat also travelled to Doolin with the Coast Guard boat.

[ Cliffs of Moher: Search for missing boy follows two recent tragedies at world famous site ]

The body has been removed by hearse to University Hospital Limerick where a postmortem examination carried out.

The multi-agency operation involved personnel from a total of eight counties who had been searching for the 12-year-old who was reported missing after he became separated from his mother during a visit to the Cliffs of Moher last Tuesday.

A land, air and sea search and rescue operation was mounted at about 2pm on Tuesday and continued until evening when sea conditions had started to deteriorate.

That initial search involved the Irish Coast Guard’s Doolin unit, the Aran Islands RNLI all-weather lifeboat, Rescue 115 and gardaí. On Wednesday morning Clare Civil Defence dispatched members of their unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) team to launch a drone.

Divers from the Garda Water Unit and Doolin Coast Guard also undertook searches of the shoreline at the base of the cliffs on Wednesday, however low cloud and mist hampered that operation.

The Cleggan unit of the Coast Guard in Galway travelled to Clare to assist their Doolin colleagues using high-spec drones to search the cliff base and wider coastline.

During the week, Civil Defence teams from Cork North, Cork West and Kerry dispatched drone teams to assist in the operation. Further Civil Defence teams from Laois and Wicklow joined the search effort while another unit from Dublin was due to travel to Clare on Sunday.

[ Danger at the Cliffs of Moher: the busy tourist walking trail and the question of who maintains it ]

Meanwhile, members of Galway and Mayo Civil Defence carried out searches of the Galway Bay coastline as part of the operation.

The Costello Bay unit of the Irish Coast Guard also searched areas along the Galway coastline while members of the Inis Oírr (Aran Islands) unit carried out shoreline searches in their area. That unit is land based and is managed by Doolin Coast Guard.

Watch officers at the Irish Coast Guard’s marine rescue co-ordination centre in Kerry, who have been co-ordinating the air and sea searches, used drift modelling software in an effort to establish what direction a body might be carried.

The Shannon based Irish Coast Guard helicopter Rescue 115 had also been carrying out searches along the Clare coastline and in Galway Bay.