Body recovered in search for 12-year-old boy missing near Cliffs of Moher

Doolin Coast Guard's Delta rigid inflatable boat (rib) arrives in Doolin, accompanied by the Aran Islands RNLI lifeboat, with a body recovered from the sea off Clare this morning.

A body has been recovered from the sea off Co Clare during the search for a missing 12-year-old boy who had disappeared near the Cliffs of Moher.

A fishing vessel reported sightings of a body at sea between Doolin and the Aran Islands, to the Coast Guard Rescue Coordination Centre in Valentia. 

Volunteers from the Doolin Coast Guard Unit boat team assisted by the Aran Islands RNLI located and recovered the body, which was subsequently transferred to An Garda Siochána.

The search around the Cliffs of Moher and surrounding sea areas has now been stood down.

With the assistance of RNLI volunteers, the remains were taken on board the Doolin Delta boat and recovered to Doolin Pier. 

The body has been removed by hearse to University Hospital Limerick where formal identification will be made and 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 around 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 carried 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.

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.