Cat lost for four years turns up over 150 miles from Northern Ireland home

Four years after the Smyth family had abandoned all hope, the call came: “We have your Blueberry.”

The beloved black cat who disappeared in November 2019 from the family home in Bangor, County Down, on Northern Ireland’s coast, turned up last week in County Galway in western Ireland.

A man in the village of Moycullen noticed that a stray roaming outside the SuperValu supermarket appeared ill and took him to the local vet on 6 February.

“He had cat flu,” Rachael Russell, a veterinary nurse at the clinic, said on Thursday. “He was very docile but very friendly. He was in a bit of pain, and tense, but still wanted human attention.”

The cat had a microchip but a search of Ireland’s pet database yielded nothing. The vets then tried Europetnet, which covers 26 European countries, and found a match in the UK.

They discovered his name was Blueberry, that he was 10 years old, and that he had started his odyssey four years earlier and more than 150 miles away.

The Smyths were not expecting the call. “We had just accepted that was it and he was gone, but then my mum received a call from someone down south,” Hannah Smyth told the Belfast Telegraph. “They said: ‘We have your Blueberry.’ She couldn’t believe it. We all thought there was no way it was possible.”

The Smyths retrieved their pet this week for a joyous homecoming. “We are still in shock. It’s just brilliant,” said Smyth. “He knew it was us; as soon as the girls brought him out he started with the head-butts,” she said. “He was a bit out of it when we first saw him, but he seems to be back to himself now.”

Libby Porter, who helps run a pet rescue and rehoming group in north Down, said the story showed the importance of microchipping pets and keeping the data updated. “We’ve had pets turn up after two years. This definitely tops that.”