Macroom fire: ‘I tried going in. I got up one, two steps, but the smoke was too much’

Locals who tried to save two men who died in a house fire have told of how the heat and flames beat back their efforts even as a woman jumped to safety from an upstairs window.

The tragedy unfolded at a three-bedroomed terraced house in the St Colman’s Park estate in Macroom in Co Cork yesterday.

Inside were Nóirín McAuliffe, in her late 50s, her son, 26-year-old Kenny Relihan, and family friend Noel O’Mahony from nearby Clondrohid, who was in his early 60s.