A service that can't just coast along

Members of the Doolin unit of the Irish Coast Guard are in a relaxed mood as they train off the stunning north Clare coast. On a beautiful, sunny day, the wonderful panorama of the Twelve Pins in Galway across the bay, the Aran Islands just off the coast and the Cliffs of Moher further south, forms the backdrop to the exercise at cliffs near Fanore. Unit member Conor McGrath remarks: "It isn't always like this, you know" - as a handful of the hundreds of thousands of people who come to explore this dreamlike, though often dangerous, landscape each year know to their cost.

Last year, in all weather conditions and at all times of the day and night, the 15 volunteers in the group were involved in 28 emergency call-outs, which included not only rescues, but also the recovery of 11 bodies in the north Clare/south Galway region. In addition, the unit took part in 26 training sessions and, in all, the unit contributed 1,400 work hours to the Irish Coast Guard service.

"It was a very busy year," says area officer Mattie Shannon. "It took a lot out of the lads and has taken its toll. It was very hard, we were going all the time."

As a result of last year's record number of call-outs, the unit has recruited an additional three members and, in keeping with Doolin's unrivalled reputation for its traditional music, one of the new members is world-renowned and Grammy award-winning uileann piper, Davy Spillane.

Living in the area since 1992, Spillane, who has played with some of the world's best-known artists, including Van Morrison and Enya, says he is in it for the long haul. "My interest in joining is that I want to be of service to the community and reinvolve myself in the Doolin community. I'm not going to be involved only for a year or part-time, I'm going down the road with this and I am looking forward to it."

Spillane says that he is looking forward to learning from the unit and heightening his awareness about the sea and seaboard. He remarks: "There is amazing energy in Doolin through the work of the unit."

The unit is in many ways a mirror image of the make-up of the Doolin community, with Spillane joining three other traditional Irish musicians already in the unit: Ian Lambe, Danny Burke and Kevin Griffin. Indeed most of the volunteers are self-employed. There are also a number of former urban dwellers, particularly from Dublin, in its ranks. As a result, the unit is now broken down into what members jocosely refer to as BIs (blow-ins) and IBs (in-breds).

One of the other new members, Marie Murray, falls into the former category, but she is also the first woman to join the unit in the past five years. The other recruit is Stephen Fitzpatrick (18), who has already experienced at first-hand a rescue operation when the Doolin unit saved the life of his brother, Peter, in 1998 when he suffered a fall at the Cliffs of Moher - during the six-hour rescue operation, Stephen remained with Peter.

Director of the Irish Coast Guard, Captain Liam Kirwin, says that the Doolin Unit "is a very, very professional group of people". He adds: "The unit is amongst the busiest in terms of call-outs in the country and for a voluntary organisation, they often go above and beyond the call of duty due to the area that they work in."

In the operations to recover 11 bodies last year, the one that perhaps was most difficult for members was that for five-year-old local boy Rory Sambrook, who drowned near Doolin pier last December. Shannon says: "He was born 200 metres down the road and I knew him as a baby. Everyone is very sad about it."

On that December afternoon, Cathy Sambrook brought Rory, Rory's sister, Leagh, and their two-year-old friend, Ross Duffy, for a walk near the pier at Doolin. Shortly before 3 p.m., Ross's dad, Myles, who is a member of the Doolin unit, was paged by Valentia Station informing him of a young child being swept out to sea by a freak wave.

"Myles knew well it was one of the three kids," says Shannon. Four days later, after late-night and early-morning searches by the unit, Rory's body was recovered.

On the happier subject of lives saved, possibly the most notable was the rescue of University College, Dublin student Luke McKinny (21), who was trapped for 10 hours in a cave in the Burren near Fanore.

Radio operator Pat Hartigan says: "The need to make the right decision quickly is essential, whatever type of incident it is. Do you call out the helicopter? What equipment do you use? Do you launch a boat? How do you treat the injured party? A lot of our training is geared towards improving our response time and in incidents, sometimes seconds can be vital."

Ray Murphy, a native of Dublin, says: "When you get someone out and get them alive, especially when you thought it was a hopeless situation or very touch-and-go, then that is the most rewarding, the most incredible high in the world." Not all rescue operations engender that level of emotion. In 1994, the unit - winning an Ambassador of Tourism Award in the process - successfully rescued a bag belonging to a Canadian tourist, which was blown off the Cliffs of Moher.

After the Canadian had frantically explained to north Clare gardai that the bag contained expensive camera equipment, passport and credit cards, the unit answered his call, launching its boat when rough seas had subsided, travelling to the base of the cliffs before unit members, Shannon and Andrew Basher swam to the shore to rescue the bag. Shannon, whose son Pearse has recently joined the unit, remarks that in those years, "we were as much a fundraising team as a rescue team" and were raising and spending £7,000 per annum on the service in addition to the nominal funds the Department was allocating.

Shannon adds: "It was like a drug, the more we learned about search/rescue the more equipment we wanted and the more training weekends around the country we took part in." He remarks that when they started out in 1989, the unit relied on a converted horse-drawn car to carry all their equipment.

During rescue operations and in fund-raising, the role of the local community has been vital. Last March, the Irish Coast Guard allocated an £80,000 twin-engine boat to the unit and plans are advanced for the construction of a state-of-the-art station at Doolin pier next year.

"We have come a long way in a very short time from the horse-drawn car to the proposed new station with the best of equipment and one of the best trained teams in the country," adds Shannon.