Black day on roads as six die ahead of holiday weekend

THE families of six people, including two children and a grandmother, are preparing to bury their loved ones today following one of the blackest days for road traffic accidents in the history of the State.

In less than 10 hours on Thursday, there were six separate fatal accidents, four of them involving lorries.

The deaths occurred just hours before gardaí launched Operation Taisteal, the bank holiday crackdown on road crime aimed at preventing fatalities. It began at midnight on Thursday and continues until the same time on Monday.