Elaine has been on the team over 11 years and what she likes most about being a member of a mountain rescue team is the great friends she's made from it and the skills she has developed over the course of the years. 

She’s employed as an Environmental, Health and Safety Engineer in a local pharmaceutical company in Westport. She credits her passion for the mountains to hiking trips with her Dad to Kerry and to Wales when they hopped on a ferry when she was a youngster. A regular visitor to wintery climbs in Wales and Scotland, she has also climbed in the French Alps, Slovenia, the Dolomites, Atlas Mountains as well as trips to Borneo and Everest Base Camp.

She has completed her Mountain Leader training but is also interested in the medical side of things and trained as a Wilderness and PHECC EMT. She has also become strangely interested in ropes and enjoys the rope rescue training as well. She is probably one of the team’s best all-rounders!

She has had various roles on the team but in 2022, she took up the role of Team Leader.

This is a hugely demanding role on a busy team like ours, personally responding to the tasking bodies on every single call-out like An Garda Siochana, Rescue Heli 118 and the national Ambulance service. Then making hard decisions as to the allocation of resources and when and how to deploy the team. As Team Leader she must manage everything from operations, to morale, to communications with the public and other organisations.

While she’s busy wrestling with the demands of all these activities and managing to hold down a day job, she’s trying to wrestle the socks off Toby her new puppy who still hasn't learned how to answer the damn phone.