Lady Gogo’s hero doesn’t have to go!

The rescuer of a beloved three-legged goat who boasts an artificial limb has got a stay of execution after being granted a temporary residency permit.

Canadian Stephanie Dick faced leaving Lady Gogo behind after she was given orders to leave by the Department of Justice and Equality in 2016.

The Connacht Tribune first published the heart-warming story of how Stephanie nursed the goat back to life after its leg was bitten off by a dog.

Lady Gogo became a firm favourite of holiday-makers stopping off at the Ben Lettery Hostel in Ballinahinch where she was a manager. They were amazed to see a goat lounging on couches and begging to be petted.

The goat so melted the heart of one visitor to the hostel that the paediatric prosthetist went back to France and moulded an artificial limb suitable for the goat from discarded human prosthetics.

But the ensuing publicity also attracted some unwanted attention. Shortly afterwards she received a visit by immigration officials to the hostel nestled in Connemara National Park on foot of a complaint that she was in the country illegally.

She appealed the decision through solicitors and friend Paul Corcoran launched a petition to reverse the deportation order, which garnered 3,000 signatures.

“I got seriously depressed. I was despairing and was having chronic nightmares as I thought about what I would do when I was deported, where was I going to go and how am I going to take the animals,” she recalled.

The 45-year-old has been working in the country since 2002, living mainly in rural areas and getting her passport stamped by Gardaí. But errors in her documentation meant she did not have the correct residency permit.

That has now changed following the decision by the Department to grant her a three-year visa.

“I’m actually starting to sleep again, my colour’s come back, I’m able to look people in the eye when looking for a job.”

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