App alerted man his partner was at cliffs before she walked over edge
Couple lost baby just weeks earlier
‘People are worried’ ‘A very difficult place’
A MAN discovered via his phone’s Volvo app that his partner had driven her car to the Cliffs of Moher where she walked off the edge as gardaí tried to save her, an inquest heard.
In a double tragedy, the woman’s death on December 13, 2021, followed the couple’s infant child dying only weeks before, on November 18.
At the Clare Coroner’s court in Kilrush, the man said that after seeing the location of his partner’s Volvo at the Cliffs of Moher car park on the evening of December 13, 2021, he immediately rang 999 as he was concerned for her safety.
The man said his partner, aged 42, had called into his workplace that morning with coffee for him and they chatted for 15 minutes. He said he had no concerns at that time for his partner and she told him that ‘she had to go to the bank and get stuff for dinner’.
He said he called her phone at 5pm but it was switched off and she wasn’t at home.
As a result of the man’s 999 call, a patrol car from Ennistymon Garda Station was sent to the Cliffs of Moher.
In evidence at the inquest, Detective Garda Margaret Leahy said that on arrival at the cliffs, she saw the white Volvo belonging to the woman in the car park and there was no one inside.
Gardaí split up with one searching towards O’Brien’s Tower to the right while Det Leahy went in the direction of Hag’s Head to the left.
Det Leahy told the inquest: ‘I walked half a kilometre when I came across the woman sitting on the grass beside the cliff edge.’
The detective said she called the woman by her first name ‘and she stood up and said “yes”’. Det Leahy said: ‘I asked: are you alright? And she replied, “I’m fine”.
‘I said that I would go over and talk to her.’
Det Leahy said the woman ‘was approximately ten metres away from me on the grass verge area’ and she told her, ‘No, I’m fine. I’m grand.’
Det Leahy said she said to the woman: ‘People are worried about you and I just want to talk to you.’ The detective said the woman ‘just turned and looked over at the cliff edge and looked back at me and took three steps towards the cliff edge and walked off the cliff edge’. Det Leahy said she ‘ran over to the cliff edge to see and it was a sheer drop’. She added: ‘I could not see the bottom of the cliff due to the darkness’.
Earlier, the woman’s partner immediately departed for north Clare on seeing the Volvo’s location on his app.
However, he said that when he reached Ennistymon Garda Station he was told she ‘had gone off the Cliffs of Moher’.
Irish Coast Guard personnel from the Rescue 115 helicopter at Shannon Airport recovered the woman’s body in the waters, one mile west of O’Brien’s Tower, the following day and her remains were brought to the airport.
The woman’s partner told the inquest he travelled to Shannon Airport to identify her remains on December 14.
Clare Coroner Isobel O’Dea said to the man that he and his deceased partner had recently lost a baby before December 13, 2021 and that she was on medication at the time of her death.
Ms O’Dea said the man had no concerns for his partner on the morning of December 13, but asked if he had concerns for her prior to that. He said: ‘Several times.’
Ms O’Dea returned a narrative verdict – polytrauma consistent with a fall from a height – rather than suicide.
Ms O’Dea said she was conscious that the deceased ‘had suffered particularly difficult times, losing a baby and she was on medication’.
She explained to the woman’s partner and her parents who were in attendance: ‘In order to bring in a verdict of suicide I have to be satisfied beyond reasonable doubt that someone intended to kill themselves and knew exactly what they were doing.’
Ms O’Dea said that, with the presence of therapeutic medicine and very small amount of alcohol in the deceased’s system, there were not sufficient grounds beyond reasonable doubt for her to determine that the woman intended to do what she did.
Ms O’Dea praised An Garda Síochána’s efforts to save the woman, and the Coast Guard in recovering her remains.
She said the Cliffs of Moher ‘is a very difficult place and gardaí... deserve a medal for the work they do there’.
After Ms O’Dea gave her verdict, both of the woman’s parents addressed the coroner in the courtroom and raised questions over the care provided to their daughter when she was in receipt of psychiatric care, and over the care provided to their ‘much-wanted’ baby granddaughter.
Ms O’Dea cautioned: ‘There is no one from the hospital to answer any questions.
‘We have to be careful that we don’t do anything to suggest any negligence on behalf of the hospital.’
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