Tag Archives: Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard

A former Doolin Coast Guard volunteer has confirmed plans are underway to try and set up a new search and recovery group after Monaghan-based divers completed a 555 kilometre round trip to recover the body of an Armagh teenager recently. Bernard Lucas confirmed this was one of several incidents where he and colleagues have helped families who lost relatives below the cliffs, as the Doolin Unit of the Irish Coastguard’s cliff climbing unit was not available. He said that a few days after the body of the Armagh teenager was recovered, a woman fell off the Cliffs of Moher, was floating on the sea and had to be recovered by the lifeboat from Inishmore, which is almost 50 minutes away. Mr Lucas and a group of former Coast Guard volunteers now planned to set up their own search-and-recovery group once they can secure insurance and funding. “You can’t have a father looking down at his son at the bottom of …

Harrowing evidence of the final moments of North Clare woman and Irish Coast Guard volunteer, Caitríona Lucas, who died while assisting in a search and rescue operation off the west coast, seven years ago, was given by her crew mates at the start of her inquest today. It was accepted that Ms Lucas, of the Doolin unit of the Irish Coast Guard, was assisting members of Kilkee Coast Guard unit because they were short of volunteers. She was the first Coast Guard member to die on active duty. The 41-year old librarian and mother-of-two might have had survived had she still been wearing her safety helmet that had earlier been ripped off her by a wave, when she was struck by the Kilkee RIB and smashed against rocks off Kilkee Bay, it was heard. Ms Lucas, along with Kilkee coast guard volunteers Jenny Carway and James Lucey were searching the sea beneath the cliffs at an area near the “pollock …