Dog Survives Five Days Off Cliff

An aging dog named Sam has been saved in a dramatic rescue, after being stranded on a cliff edge for five days.

The operation to save the stricken spaniel lasted some four hours, with a member of the Sligo Leitrim Mountain Rescue team abseiling eight metres down a rock face to where the dog was lodged in shrubbery on a narrow ledge.

The thirteen-and-a-half-year-old Sam was reunited with his owner, Annie Gilmartin, after he disappeared from his home in Ballintrillick, in the foothills of Sligo's Ben Bulben mountain, last Wednesday.

The alarm was raised on Sunday when a hiker spotted the agitated animal on a narrow ledge and reported it to Gardai, who contacted the Sligo Leitrim Mountain Rescue team.

A rescuer lifted the starving dog from the precarious ledge into his arms and carried him down some 19 metres of dangerous cliff face to ground level.

Sam had been missing for a number of days before being located 24km from his home on the other side of the mountain. Locals around Glencar lake later said they had heard relentless barking from a dog from high up in the Tormore cliffs.

Spokesperson for the rescue team, Alan Sayers, said the operation was carried out in difficult conditions.

"We were on an exercise in the area so were kitted out and at the scene within 10 minutes when we got the call, but it was pitch dark by that time and we had to abandon the mission until the next morning.

"If he had fallen from the top he would have fallen the whole way but access to where he was is very limited. There are just a few extremely narrow sheep trails," he said.

The Gilmartin family were reunited with their pet yesterday morning following an appeal they had launched on Ocean FM radio.

Andy Gilmartin, whose mother Annie owns the dog, said she was speechless with joy.

"We are over the moon. We thought we would never see him again. He never wanders further than a few hundred metres from my mother's house so it is a complete mystery why he would start doing marathons at this stage in his life," he said.

(DW/KMcA)