The deaths of five young friends in a road crash in Co Louth at the weekend as they travelled for a night out will have “a deep impact” on families and communities in Ireland and abroad, a senior garda has said.
The five were killed instantly on Saturday night in a head-on collision near Dundalk, with first responders arriving to what was described as a scene of “utter devastation”.
The friends were named last night 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.
The Volkswagen Golf they were travelling to Dundalk in was in a collision with a Toyota Landcruiser just after 9pm in the townland of Gibstown.
READ MORE
A sixth person travelling in the Volkswagen, a young man, survived and was being treated in hospital for serious injuries. The occupants of the Toyota, a man and a woman, were also receiving hospital treatment.
One responder who attended the scene said the Volkswagen was “completely destroyed” and it was a “miracle” that one of the occupants survived. “It was a deeply traumatic situation for everyone.”
President Catherine Connolly said she was “deeply saddened and shocked by the loss of five precious young lives in Louth”. Taoiseach Michéal Martin said he was “numbed and shocked at the horrific road crash”.
The collision happened on the eve of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, which was on Sunday marked at a number of locations across the State, including at the Augustinan Church in nearby Drogheda.
The number of deaths on Irish roads remains stubbornly high despite significant decreases across the rest of the European Union, with the crash in Co Louth bringing to 158 the total for this year, an increase of 10 on the same period last year.
Gardaí later said a motorcyclist, aged in his 50s, had died following a collision with a car on the R519 at Ballykevin near Kilmeedy, Co Limerick, on Sunday afternoon.
The five young people who died in Co Louth were part of a close-knit friend group.
Ms McGee was a woodwork teacher in Ó Fiaich College, Dundalk. School principal Padraig McGovern told RTÉ news she was a “very valued member of our staff and an extremely energetic, positive person and someone who enjoyed life and who gave everything she had to her job”.
Mr McCluskey worked as a fencing contractor in the northeast and had just returned from a holiday to Dubai with Ms McGee. In one of the pictures on social media of their travels, Ms McGee described them as being “just two big kids loving life”.
Mr Commins was a car and motocross enthusiast who worked as a mechanic in north Co Meath while Mr Duffy was an avid GAA player with the club Aughnamullen.
Ms Hipson had moved from Scotland to Ireland to study quantity surveying at Dundalk Institute of Technology, where she was in her second year.
Tánaiste Simon Harris said a “veil of deep sadness and shock” had come over the country with the news.
Supt Charlie Armstrong of Dundalk Garda station said the deaths would have a “deep impact on families and local communities” in Carrickmacross, Dromconrath and Scotland.
He paid tribute to emergency workers who attended the scene and treated the victims. “The scene was very difficult, in adverse weather conditions, and the professionalism shown by all first responders and the care and respect shown to the five deceased was exemplary.”
The Garda investigation will focus on the cause of the crash and the road conditions at the time. It had been raining heavily before the incident and the stretch of road in Gibstown, close to the M1 motorway, was described by locals as particularly hazardous in wet conditions.
An incident room has been established at Dundalk Garda station and investigators are appealing for people who were on the L3168 road between 8.30pm and 9.15pm on Saturday to come forward with any relevant information.
Postmortems are due to be carried out on the deceased over the coming days.
