Gardaí believe the survivors of the Co Louth crash that claimed five lives over the weekend will be able to explain the events leading up the fatal crash, the worst road-traffic collision in the Republic for a decade.
The group of friends who were killed were going to socialise in Dundalk on Saturday night when the Volkswagen Golf they were travelling in collided with a Toyota Land Cruiser just after 9pm on Saturday in the townland of Gibstown.
The crash was believed to have been head-on and to have caused the Golf, carrying six people, to catch fire.
The two people in the Land Cruiser did not suffer life-threatening injuries, and investigating gardaí in Dundalk are hopeful they could offer vital assistance during interviews in the coming days.
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They are believed to be from the local area. The sole survivor travelling in the Golf was more seriously injured, and it is not clear when he may be available for interview.
A senior Garda officer described the scene of the crash as “difficult” for those who attended. Supt Charlie Armstrong said gardaí who attended then had to inform the parents and other family members that their loved ones had been killed.
Supt Armstrong, who is based in Dundalk, said the families and friends of all five victims would, in time, seek answers for how the crash happened. The Garda investigators working on the investigation would work hard to provide those answers, he said.
While everyone in the Garda was warned from the time they were training at the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, that they may be called upon to attend very difficult scenes, they all hoped it would never happen, he said.
“You see things you can’t unsee; the uniform is not a shield for that,” he said. “The members who attended the scene range in service from three months to 30 years. They finished duty at 7am on Sunday and they were back working again last night. They were given the option of being replaced by their colleagues but they wanted to come in, they wanted to work with their colleagues.”
The friends killed were named as Chloe McGee (23) and Shay Duffy (21) from Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan; Alan McCluskey (23) from Drumconrath, Co Meath; Dylan Commins (23) from Ardee, Co Louth; and Chloe Hipson (21) from Lanarkshire, Scotland, who was living in Carrickmacross.
Supt Armstrong said the emergency services personnel who attended the scene – including firefighters based at Dundalk, HSE ambulance crews and his own Garda personnel – encountered “a difficult scene”.
Conditions had been “wet and windy” around the time of the crash, which took place outside Ardee at about 9pm.
A senior officer has been appointed to lead the investigation at Dundalk Garda station into the cause of the tragedy. Postmortems will be carried out on the remains of the five victims over the coming days.
The vehicles involved in the crash will be examined for clues, though the Volkswagen the five deceased were in was badly damaged by fire.
Ms Hipson’s friend described her as having the “kindest soul”. Chantel Cullen said she would never forget their friendship, saying Ms Hipson would be “forever 21”.
“My girl, my beautiful bestie. Words can’t even explain how heartbroken I am. The most kindest soul with the most pure smile,” she wrote on social media.
Another one of the victims, Chloe McGee, had just taken up a permanent teaching job at Ó Fiaich Institute of Further Education in Dundalk. The institute’s principal, Padraig McGovern, said he spoke to her on Friday about how much she was looking forward to the weekend.
He described her as being “full of fun ... full of achievement and success”, with her permanent job at the school – as a woodwork and construction teacher – recently confirmed.
“She became very much a part of the fabric of our school. She loved to help her students, loved to go the extra mile,” Mr McGovern told RTÉ Radio 1’s Morning Ireland.
“She was very good at her subject. And was also the sort of girl that was involved in everything, all sorts of staff activities, any sort of new projects, anything that we were looking at to develop she was there and willing to take part.”
On Sunday, President Catherine Connolly said she was “deeply saddened and shocked by the loss of five precious young lives in Louth”.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin said the country is “numb and shocked” at the scale of the tragedy.
He said there is “devastation” for their families, friends and communities and it is “very, very difficult to comprehend such a loss”.
Speaking alongside other Opposition leaders on Monday, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald paid tribute to the “five young lives ... so traumatically and tragically lost”. .
Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik expressed her “deepest condolences” to all bereaved in the “horrific crash”.
Holly Cairns, the Social Democrats leader, said: “All of our thoughts are with the families and friends and communities of those young people who so tragically lost their life over the weekend.”
Green Party leader Roderic O’Gorman also offered his sympathies to the families who lost loved ones. “It’s really hard to understand the degree of devastation that five communities, families, friends, communities, will face following such a tragic crash.”
The crash in Co Louth brought to 158 the total number of road fatalities for this year in the Republic, an increase of 10 on the same period last year.
