Seven men and one woman were killed in four separate road crashes at the weekend, in the worst 48 hours for road fatalities since the start of the year. Five of the dead are understood to have been foreign nationals.
The largest number of fatalities resulted from one crash in Co Laois where four people were killed in a head-on collision between two cars.
In another incident two men were killed in a collision between a car and a minibus near Athlone, Co Westmeath.
A man was killed in a single vehicle collision in Cork and another man died in a crash in Antrim.
Three men and a woman were killed in what gardaí said was a failed attempt at overtaking on the Borris-in-Ossory to Roscrea stretch of the N7 in Co Laois on Saturday.
The crash happened at 9.30am near Ballaghmore.
William Quane (34) from Monaska, Clonlara, in Co Clare, and his friend Seán O'Donoghue (37) from Lisaleen, Patrickswell, Co Limerick, were on their way to the Ireland-Italy rugby match in Croke Park when their car was struck by another coming from the Dublin direction.
Both men were killed in the crash. A third man who was also travelling in the car was in a serious condition in hospital yesterday.
The other car was driven by a Polish man David Dziemianowicz (21).
He and his passenger, Italian woman Marika Rossi (24), were killed in the collision.
It is understood their car was overtaking other vehicles when the incident occurred.
Gardaí said the accident happened on a relatively straight stretch of road and that traffic had been quite heavy for a Saturday morning with spectators travelling to the match in Dublin.
"There was an overtaking manoeuvre that finished up with one car on the wrong side of the road at the time of the collision.
"It happened on a very wide, straight part of the road with a hard shoulder nearly the same width of the main part of the road," a garda based in Abbeyleix said.
The force of the collision was very severe with both vehicles destroyed by the impact, he said. "The collision was enough to force the engine out of one of the cars. It was very bad, an awful impact."
Local parish priest Fr Jackie Robinson said it was the worst accident he had attended in his 35 years as a priest.
"The engine of the car the young Polish man was driving was completely ripped out, the passenger door was around 100 feet away and the front tyre on that side was 100 feet away as well."
Mr Quane and Mr O'Donoghue had worked together in the Dell Computer firm in Limerick. Mr Quane is survived by his parents, two brothers and a sister.
Mr O'Donoghue is survived by his parents and a younger sister, Catherine.
Yesterday two men were killed and a third was seriously injured in a crash between a car and a minibus outside Athlone, near the Roscommon-Galway border.
Two of three occupants in the car - believed to be non-Irish nationals in their early twenties - were killed in the collision, which occurred at about 1.15am on the main N6 route at Ballydangan outside Athlone.
The driver was seriously injured and is being treated in Portiuncula Hospital, Ballinasloe. The minibus driver and 15 passengers were also taken to hospital.
The minibus was carrying a party from Ahascragh, east Galway, who were en route to the airport for a skiing holiday.
Gardaí were yesterday attempting to identify a foreign national who lost his life in a single vehicle crash at Ballineen near Bandon in west Cork.
The crash happened at 9.30pm on Saturday at Manche, Ballineen, Co Cork.
The man was fatally injured when the car he was driving left the road and hit a number of trees on the left-hand side of road. The car burst into flames following impact.
The driver is believed to have been the sole occupant of the car.
The body was removed from the scene and taken to Cork University Hospital.
The Road Safety Authority was concerned about the occurrence of multiple fatalities, a factor that had not been common in collisions for several years, its chief executive Noel Brett said.
"Lives have been shattered and while our sympathies go to the families of those who have died and those who are injured, we would use this as an opportunity to appeal to people to take personal responsibility for their actions on the roads."
