A woman has died in hospital after was she swept into the sea by a rogue wave in north Clare this morning, writes Patrick Flynn.
The woman – believed to be 53 years old with an address in Co Tipperary – is understood to have been part of a group that had been fishing at Ballyreen, south of Fanore.
The alarm was raised at around 8.45am when the Irish Coast Guard received a report of a person in the water.
Coast Guard teams from Doolin travelled to the scene by boat and by road, while an ambulance and Gardaí also responded to the incident.
The boat crew located the woman, who is reported to be of eastern-European descent, in the water about a kilometre from where she fell into the sea.
Volunteers recovered the woman from the water and worked to resuscitate her while the helicopter crew prepared to winch her aboard.
The woman was flown to University Hospital Galway for treatment, but she was pronounced dead a short time later.
A postmortem examination is expected to be carried out on Monday.