A 35-year-old woman was swept off the Cliffs of Moher in Co Clare yesterday but was still alive when recovered from the water an hour later.
Despite surviving the initial 600-foot fall, the woman died a short time later in a Galway hospital from her injuries.
The Polish woman, who had been living in Dublin for the past year, was visiting the popular tourist attraction with a male companion when high winds swept her into the sea.
Gardaí confirmed that they are treating the incident as a "tragic accident".
"We understand that the woman was near the cliff edge when she slipped. It appears that she lost her footing after being caught by a gust of wind.
"She was found about an hour later and airlifted to hospital in Galway where she passed away a short time later," a Garda spokesman said.
The incident occurred shortly after midday. The man who had been with the woman was unharmed but deeply shocked. He raised the alarm.
A largescale search was quickly launched and the woman was spotted in the water an hour later. Coast Guard units that had been involved in a training exercise near Rossaveal in Co Galway rushed to the scene.
The crew of the Shannon-based Irish Coastguard helicopter recovered the woman, who was unconscious, after she had been spotted by search teams on land.
When she was taken on board the helicopter, a crew member detected a pulse and she was rushed to Galway's University College Hospital but died a short time later.
Up to 800 people were at the cliffs at the time but the accident occurred in an area which was off the main tourist trail.
A Coast Guard spokesman said: "There were huge numbers at the cliffs at the time but very few, if any, where this tragedy happened.
"It looks like the woman stepped towards the edge to have a closer look but was swept off. The fact that she lived for so long afterwards is unreal," he said.
Gardaí were trying to contact the woman's family in Poland last night while a postmortem examination is due to be carried out this morning in University College Hospital Galway.