Four young men killed in weekend road carnage

FOUR young men became the latest victims of Ireland's road carnage over the weekend.

The dead include two teens, aged 17 and 18, killed in a crash in the early hours of yesterday morning in Clare. They were in a car which went out of control and hit a ditch, then crashed into a field near Lahinch at around 5am.

The names of the young men were not released by gardaí but they are believed to be from the nearby village of Quilty.

A third teenager was killed in a crash in Galway two hours later, when a jeep overturned near Rosmuc. Three passengers escaped uninjured from the crash in which the driver, 19-year-old Patrick Mannion from Rosmuc, died. It is believed the jeep hit a wall and rolled over at a bad bend.

Gardaí in Limerick yesterday named the victim of a road accident on Friday night as 21-year-old John Hughes from Bruree. His car crashed into a wall of a house at Bruff, Co Limerick, at around 11.15pm on Friday. Gardaí are seeking witnesses to the accident.

The weekend fatalities bring the number of people killed since the start of the year to 216, almost 10 more than at this time last year.