A brother and sister were among those to lose their lives in car crash in Clonmel yesterday evening.
Four young people – three 18 year old girls who had received their Leaving Cert results and a man his 20s – were killed in the single vehicle incident.
Gardaí have named them as 24 year old Luke McSweeney, his sister Grace McSweeney, Nicole Murphy and Zoey Coffey.
It happened at Hillview on the Mountain Road at 7.30pm.
One of the girls was a student at the Loretto school just a few metres from where the tragedy happened while the two others went to the Presentation school.
Both schools as well as the High School in Clonmel where the young man was a past pupil, will remain open today to provide support.
School chaplain Fr. Michael Toomey was called to the scene last night.
“It’s been a terrible tragedy – obviously last night was meant to be a night of great celebration for the Leaving Cert students. That is the whole heartache and the tragedy of it. My thoughts and prayers obviously with the family at this stage but can I also pay tribute to the Emergency Services. I was here last night with the family when they arrived. Emergency Services had to deal with a very, very serious incident – what sadly hindered part of that was there was drone footage and some pictures were shown on social media so I would ask people, particularly our young people, please don’t share images.”
Mayor of Clonmel Richie Molloy says this tragedy has left the town in a state of shock.
“When the news started coming out last night it was just hard to credit what happened. And just to acknowledge again that C-SAW is going to provide a service over the weekend because its effecting each and every one of us I think in the town. The families involved of course the hardest but everybody right across the community is feeling it and will feel it for a long time to come.”
C-SAW House on William Street in Clonmel will be open from 4pm to 8pm today and tomorrow for anyone who wishes to avail of their services.
