A body has been recovered from the sea off Co Clare as the search for a missing boy resumed for a sixth day.
At around 10am today, the occupants of a pleasure craft reported seeing something in the water off the Clare coast around 3kms north of Doolin from where the Garda-led search was being coordinated. The skipper of the boat immediately raised the alarm.
Watch officers at the Irish Coast Guard’s marine rescue coordination centre in Kerry alerted the Doolin unit of the service as well as the RNLI and Gardaí. 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 soon located a body.
With the assistance of RNLI volunteers, the remains were taken on board the Doolin 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.
The body was later removed by hearse to University Hospital Limerick where formal identification will be made and a postmortem examination carried out.
A Garda spokesperson confirmed: “Following the recovery of a body this morning, Sunday, 28th July, a coastal search operation for a young boy missing from the vicinity of the Cliffs of Moher, Co. Clare since Tuesday afternoon, has been stood down. A file will now be prepared for the Coroner.”
The multi-agency operation involved personnel from a total of eight counties who had been searching for a 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 around 2.00pm 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. Killaloe Coast Guard also dispatched a drone team to the area.
During the week, Civil Defence teams from Cork North, Cork West and Kerry dispatched drone teams to assist in the operation. Further Civil Defence units from Laois and Wicklow joined the search effort while another unit from Dublin was due to travel to Clare on Sunday.
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 coordination centre in Kerry, who have been coordinating 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.
The Irish Coast Guard has thanked all those who took part in the search operation.
The groups who assist in the search were:
Doolin Coast Guard, Inis Oírr Coast Guard, Cleggan Coast Guard, Costello Bay Coast Guard, Killaloe Coast Guard, Aran Islands RNLI, An Garda Síochána, Rescue 115, Clare Civil Defence, Kerry Civil Defence, Cork North Civil Defence, Cork West Civil Defence, Laois Civil Defence, Wicklow Civil Defence, Dublin Civil Defence, Galway Civil Defence, Mayo Civil Defence.
