Ten die in weekend of road carnage

FATAL road accidents hit a horrifying new record over the weekend. In the blackest weekend ever on Irish roads, a catalogue of nine separate accidents claimed 10 lives.

Gardaí said the carnage, in a period of less than 48 hours, was the worst ever.

As the road death toll reached 259 this year, chief executive of the National Safety Council Pat Costello said weekends are now the danger period.

This year, weekend fatalities accounted for 55% of the total so far.

After a heartbreaking summer which reached the highest number of road deaths in recent years, August and September witnessed a slump on comparative years.

Overall, the numbers are still down considerably on this time last year when 304 people died.

However, the weekend toll included three deaths in three separate accidents in Cork, two people in a single accident in Tipperary with other victims in Sligo, Offaly, Dublin, Galway and Waterford.

Five people died yesterday, including two last evening, a young man in Gawlane North, Donoughmore, Co Cork, and a woman in her 20s in Co Waterford, after a three-car smash on the Kilmeaden to Dungarvan Road.

Earlier a 36-year-old local man, Pat Finnerty, was killed around 5am when his car careered into a wall at Derrydonnell in Oranmore, Co Galway.

One of two passengers taken from the wreckage remained in a critical condition last night in Dublin’s Beaumont Hospital after being transferred from University Hospital Galway.

Meanwhile, a motorcyclist in his 30s, not named, died after a collision with a jeep at Lough Geashill on the Laois/Offaly border.

A 31-year-old motorcyclist was fatally injured after his machine struck a wall at Hazelhatch Road, Newcastle, Co Dublin, at 11am yesterday.

Saturday’s carnage included the deaths of Patrick Kennedy, 41, of Clonoulty, Tipperary, and Neil McCormack, 25, of Oola, Limerick, after a Fiat Uno and a Toyota Carina collided three miles outside of Tipperary town on the Limerick Road.

A young man who was a spectator at the Cork 20 Rally died on Saturday afternoon. Passenger Shane Cooney, 19, of Coachford, Cork, was killed when a car collided with trees at Inches, Rathduane, on the Millstreet to Rathmore Road.

Just 90 minutes earlier, at Parkadallane, Mallow, front-seat passenger Colette Briscoe, 25, from Shannon Park, Portumna, Galway, died after a three-vehicle collision. The motorcyclist who died on Saturday after a collision with a car was named as Wesley Conway, 19, of Cranmore Drive, Sligo.