A former Garda in his fifties has been named locally as the driver who died in east Cork following a collision between a car and a fuel truck on Thursday.
PJ Byrne was pronounced dead at the scene shortly after 7am when his car collided with a truck on the Midleton to Whitegate Road in East Cork.
Mr Byrne, who was a grandfather, had been employed in recent years as a caretaker at Cork College of Commerce. Mr Byrne served with distinction as a garda in north Cork for many years.
Staff at the College posted a tribute to Mr Byrne online. “It is with a very heavy heart that we report how shell shocked and sad we are as a college community to discover that one of our caretakers PJ Byrne was tragically killed in a car accident on his way to work.”
“May he rest in peace. PJ was part of our family here. He was so proud of his children and grandchildren. We are heartbroken for them all.”
Three units of the county fire service attended at the scene of the crash along with ambulance crews and gardai. Munster Fire Control was alerted to the incident at 7.01am.
The body of Mr Byrne was removed to Cork University Hospital where a postmortem is due to take place at a later date. The cause of the crash is not known at this juncture.