LAST UPDATE | 28 Jul 2024

A BODY HAS been recovered from the sea off Co Clare as the search for a missing boy resumed for a sixth day.

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 2.00pm on Tuesday and continued until evening when sea conditions had started to deteriorate.

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, 23th July 2024, has been stood down. A file will now be prepared for the Coroner.”

At around 10am today, occupants of a boat reported seeing something in the water off the Clare coast around 2km north of Doolin, from where the Garda-led search was being coordinated. 

Doolin Coast Guard personnel located a body when they arrived at the location. The body was then brought to the nearby Coast Guard station before being brought to University Hospital Limerick.