A woman who presented herself at a Dublin Garda station last week apparently suffering from severe amnesia has been identified as a 42-year-old US citizen.
US embassy officials say they are now handling the affairs of the woman, who is from California.
A chihuahua which she was carrying under her arm when she arrived at Store Street Garda station has been fostered out to a family from Dunboyne, say staff from the Ashtown pound.
The US embassy could not reveal more details about the woman unless she signs a privacy waiver, a spokesman for the embassy said yesterday.
"The only thing I can say is that gardaí notified us as soon as they had a suspicion she was from the USA and we've been working on it ever since," he said
The woman walked into the Garda Station last Sunday week. She wore a black skirt, a trench coat, leopardskin-print shoes and a multi-coloured headscarf.
She had three tattoos, two of which, on her upper arm, were in Arabic script and the third, on her calf, had been etched in a Celtic design. She spoke French and English with an American accent - and she carried the chihuahua.
The dog was taken to Ashtown pound soon after the embassy was contacted, before being fostered out. "We could have put it in the pound, but we thought it has probably been through enough trauma," said a pound spokeswoman.
The dog was neither chipped nor tagged and there was no way of telling whether it was from Ireland or the US, she said.