Friends killed in early morning car crash

Two life-long friends died and a third young man was critically injured in a horror car crash which left a small community devastated.

Ross Shine, 21, and his neighbour Kieran Walsh, 20, were killed after their Opel Astra hit a ditch in north Cork early yesterday morning.

The third occupant of the car, Darragh Murphy also in his early 20s was rushed to Cork University Hospital. He underwent emergency surgery and remains in a critical condition.

Yesterday dozens of people stopped to lay wreaths at the crash site, near the Kanturk junction on the main Mallow Killarney road.

Among those who visited the scene was Ross Shine’s younger sister Amy.

“He loved his cars. He and Kieran went to school and college together and shared a love of cars,” said Amy.

Ross, who was from Ballyellis, Mallow and who owned his own plant hire business, was the son of well-known property consultant Pat Shine and his wife Catherine.

Kieran, who lived a stone’s throw from the Shines, had just turned 20 and had played GAA with Clyda Rovers. He was the son of Christine and Willie Walsh, an MD of Packo Ireland, a dairy machinery manufacturing plant in Kanturk.

Solicitor Eugene Carey, a close neighbour of both young men said their deaths were a huge blow to a community which had now lost four young men in the past two years through tragic circumstances and all of whom had lived within a mile of each other.

Gardaí in Kanturk are appealing for anyone who witnessed the accident which took place at 1.30am to contact them at 029 50002.