'A miracle no one killed': Five hospitalised after pub collapses into street in Mayo town

Duffy's pub collapsed in the town, falling on top of a parked van and covering the pathway and part of the road in rubble. Picture: Conor McKeown

Five people have been hospitalised after a building collapsed in Co Mayo.

Gardaí attended the scene in Kilkelly at about 8:45am on Tuesday morning after receiving reports that a pub and B&B had partially collapsed.

Duffy's pub collapsed in the town, falling on top of a parked van and covering the pathway and part of the road in rubble.

Five people were rescued and taken to hospital for treatment to injuries — which gardaí believe are not life-threatening.

There have been power outages in the town since the incident on Tuesday morning.

Main Street in Kilkelly is currently closed, while local diversions are in place. 

A spokesperson for the Health and Safety Authority (HSA) said: "The HSA are aware of the incident in Kilkelly, Mayo and have launched an investigation. As such there is no further information at this time."

The scence on the square Kilkelly, Co Mayo where Duffy’s Pub collapsed early this morning, Construction work adjacent to the pub has been ongoing in recent weeks. 

Paul Lawless, a Mayo-based peace commissioner, praised the work of the emergency services and said the incident could have been a lot worse.

He said he hoped that those injured get well soon and said his thoughts were with the owners of Duffy's pub.

"There are a lot of locals in shock, really, disbelief. It was a functioning pub, an operational pub, a three-storey building, it was really shocking to see it in rubble in seconds really.

"I think we were very lucky, it seemed to happen at around nine o'clock in the morning and obviously, it is a midterm break.

"And I think we're very lucky in the sense that had it been a school day, perhaps there would have been much more footfall - passing traffic, children on the footpath.

It does appear like the building has encroached or collapsed onto the footpath so I think it was a miracle that there was no one killed in the collapse."

Picture: Conor McKeown

He added: "Credit to the emergency services and the gardaí. My understanding is that they were on the scene very, very quickly and because the building wasn't totally collapsed, they were working under hazardous conditions themselves to help the people involved, so a huge credit to them.

"I think they came from Charlestown, Swinford and Kiltimagh fire stations, so they were very, very quick on the scene here - they would (belong) to retained fire services in the area."

~ Additional reporting from PA