Gardaí yesterday renewed their appeal for help in their investigation into the two-car collision in which four men were killed and a fifth seriously injured outside Threemilehouse, Co Monaghan.
All five men came from in and around the village, which is on the Clones side of Monaghan town.
The driver and two passengers in one car were killed, and another passenger seriously injured. The driver was Dermot Thornton (21) from Crumlin, Threemilehouse, who has a young son. The two passengers who died were Brian O'Neill (19) and Gary McCormick (20), who both lived in the Cabra housing estate in the village.
The fourth man who was killed, Ciarán Hagan (20), was alone in the second car. He was Gary McCormick's first cousin and came from nearby Ballagh.
The injured man, rear seat passenger John McQuillan (27), remains in a critical condition at Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda. He also lives in the village and works in the construction industry.
Insp Pat McMorrow from Monaghan Garda station said he understood the two cars had been travelling in opposite directions when the collision happened at Kilnaclay at 2.15am on Saturday. The alarm was raised by a passing motorist and although two ambulances and two fire engines quickly attended the scene, the men were pronounced dead.
Traffic forensic investigators attended the scene on Saturday but the cause of the accident was not yet clear, Insp McMorrow said. He said speed "would be a factor but there may possibly be other factors as well." He also confirmed that some of the rear seat passengers were not wearing seatbelts.
The relatively good secondary road had been resurfaced a while ago and has an 80 km speed limit. It had been raining on Friday night so the road surface was wet, Insp McMorrow said.
He appealed for motorists who were on the road between 2am and 2.30am on Saturday to come forward so that independent evidence could help investigators determine what happened.
