Support for bus crash families hailed

AS the families and friends of the five girls killed in last May’s tragic bus crash in Navan gathered to mark the first anniversary, the Bishop of Meath said the support of the local community had been invaluable.

Bishop Michael Smith said the families had received tremendous support from friends, neighbours, the clergy and the local schools.

“They really came up trumps at the time and continue to do so. They’re a very rooted community,” he said.

St Michael’s Loreto College, which lost four of its pupils in the crash, held a private memorial service in St Mary’s Church, Navan, last night.

Bishop Smith is due to concelebrate another memorial Mass at Beauparc church in Meath at 7.30pm today.

He said he had been heartened by the efforts of students in St Michael’s Loreto College, who made road safety key rings in memory of the girls with the message ‘life is a gift’.

“They were trying to talk to their own age-group with that message and that’s certainly the message I’d like to give young people, as I’ve been doing at confirmations over the last couple of months.”

The key rings each contain safety key words to remember the individual students who died: ‘Awareness’ for 15-year-old Aimee McCabe, ‘Distance’ for 17-year-old Deirdre Scanlon, ‘Caution’ for 18-year-old Claire McCluskey, ‘Life’ for 15-year-old Lisa Callan and ‘Safety’ for 15-year-old Sinead Ledwidge.

More than 7,000 key rings have been sold so far and 14,000 has been raised

for the Children’s Unit of the Louth/Meath Hospital Group.

Some 46 other students were injured when the Bus Eireann school bus skidded and toppled over on the narrow Navan to Kentstown road.