Funeral as five Irish tourists die in a week

THE funeral of a 27-year-old Irish holiday-maker who died in Marbella just weeks before he was due to marry, will take place in Portmarnock later today.

Ross Millar is the fifth Irish person to die on holiday in the past week.

Mr Millar, an IT manager, died on Friday night after falling from a balcony while he was trying to get inside the apartment he was staying in.

His body was flown home on Tuesday night.

Yesterday his father, Frank, said the family was “devastated” by the death of a son who “always had a smile on his face”.

Ross, who was to marry in September, had gone home early and, realising he had forgotten his keys, had tried to climb inside.

In a week that claimed five Irish holidaymakers, a Dublin councillor and his girlfriend were killed in a Beijing road accident on Tuesday.

Green councillor Fintan McCarthy and partner Sonia Rabbitte died when the minibus they were passengers on collided with a lorry outside the Chinese capital as they travelled to see the Great Wall of China.

Also on Tuesday, a 21-year-old nephew of Defence Minister Willie O’Dea died in a drowning accident while holidaying with five friends in Ibiza.

Basil Bourke was a native of Hospital, Co Limerick, and a student at Limerick Institute of Technology. He was the only son of Mr O’Dea’s sister Mary Bourke.

Last Sunday, 23-year-old Monaghan man Brendan O’Reilly died in a drowning accident in a swimming pool at an apartment complex in Playa del Ingles in the Canary Islands.

He had left Ireland less than 48 hours before.

Meanwhile, a teenager from Co Down is still recovering in hospital after being shot in the face outside a nightclub in Ibiza.

Niall Hamilton, 19, and his 18-year-old friend Gareth Richardson, who received a flesh wound to the chest, were caught in crossfire between two rival drug gangs in the popular resort on Monday morning.