Four killed in road accidents

THE carnage on Irish roads claimed four more lives in the past 24 hours — two in Co Limerick and two in Co Donegal.

A weekend in Limerick for a young Co Waterford couple ended in tragedy when they were killed instantly after their car was involved in a collision with a van near Pallasgreen, Co Limerick. The two occupants in the van were seriously injured. The dead couple were named as Clodagh Phelan, aged 26, the driver of the red Nissan Primera car, and her partner, Desmond Quinlan, aged 34, of 16 Birchwood, Killure, Waterford. The couple had two young children, a five-year-old boy and a two-year-old girl.

According to gardaí, the couple had spent the weekend in Limerick and were returning home at the time of the accident, which occurred around 7.20am on the main Limerick-Tipperary road.

The two men travelling in a white transit van towards Limerick were the driver, John Linnane, Brockile, Pallasgreen, Co Limerick, who is in his 40s, and Sean Lonergan, Cross, Pallasgreen, in his 30s. Both were seriously injured and rushed by ambulance to the Mid-Western Regional Hospital in Limerick, where their conditions are said to be stable. Post mortems on the two victims were carried out at the hospital.

Members of Cappamore Fire Brigade had to use special cutting equipment to extricate the two victims from the wreckage.

“This was a most tragic and serious accident and all the circumstances are being fully investigated,” said Supt Michael O’Keeffe, of Bruff Garda Station.

Gardaí have appealed for information

The telephone number at Bruff is 061-382940.

In a separate accident, two men died on Sunday night when the car in which they were travelling overturned on the main Letterkenny-Ballybofey road in Co Donegal.

The two victims were named by gardaí as Paul Gibson, aged 33, Meadow Drive Park, Letterkenny, and Damien Callan, aged 28, of Dr McGingley Road, Letterkenny. Gardaí are appealing for witnesses.

Meanwhile, two females who were seriously injured in a joyriding incident in Limerick at the weekend are recovering in the Mid-Western Regional Hospital. One of them, aged 21, is in a critical condition and a 16-year-old girl is in a stable condition.

They were passengers in a stolen car which crashed into a traffic island on Saturday morning at the Castlemungret roundabout on the Dock Road. The driver of the stolen vehicle, Thomas Moran, aged 23, of O’Malley Park, Southill, was charged at a special sitting of Limerick District Court on Sunday for using a car without the consent of the owner.