Irishman, 35, drowns while on holiday in Morocco

AN Irishman has drowned while on holiday in Morocco.

Alan Buckley, 35, who lived in Tivoli in Cork city, died on Friday in the north west African country.

He is a son of Cork publican Declan Buckley who owns The Marina Bar on Victoria Road, and has run several other well-known city bars over the years, including The Bailey, The Courthouse and The Ovens Bar.

The Department of Foreign Affairs declined to comment on the details or circumstances of the tragedy last night. However, a spokesperson confirmed that it is providing consular assistance to Mr Buckley’s family through the offices of its honorary consul based in Morocco, assisted by diplomats based at its embassy in Lisbon, Portugal.

It was not clear last night when the body will be repatriated.

Meanwhile, gardaí in Co Louth have renewed their appeal for information on the New Year’s Day road traffic accident which claimed the lives of two young people.

Driver Patrick Harper, 22, and his 17-year-old friend, Susan Larrigan, who both lived in Dundalk, died instantly when the BMW car in which they were travelling went out of control on the southbound motorway of the M1, between junctions 15 and 16 at about 4.30am and crashed into a wooden pole.

Postmortems were carried out on the remains in the Louth County Hospital yesterday.

A Garda spokesman said they are trying to piece together where the two had been before they got into the car.

Gardaí believe the car joined the motorway at the Dundalk south slip road and there are reports that it travelled on the hard shoulder for a short distance.

It is believed to have veered out of control as it returned to a lane after overtaking a Skoda car.

Gardaí have asked witnesses to contact them either on 041-6871130 or the Garda confidential line 1800 666 111.

Meanwhile, in Co Antrim, police and members of an underwater search team recovered the body yesterday morning of a 63-year-old man whose car crashed and plunged into a river.

The man was travelling in a blue Peugeot 406 which crashed through a wall on the Glenshesk Road in Ballycastle, and plunged into the water on Saturday afternoon.

The body was discovered at about 10pm that night and recovered yesterday.

Police are appealing for witnesses to the incident to contact them.