{"id":144148,"date":"2025-11-17T07:20:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T07:20:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/144148\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T07:20:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T07:20:08","slug":"deaths-of-five-friends-will-have-deep-impact-in-ireland-and-abroad-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/144148\/","title":{"rendered":"Deaths of five friends will have \u2018deep impact\u2019 in Ireland and abroad \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The deaths of five young friends in a road crash in Co Louth<\/a> at the weekend as they travelled for a night out will have \u201ca deep impact\u201d on families and communities in Ireland and abroad, a senior garda<\/a> has said. <\/p>\n

The five were killed instantly on Saturday night in a head-on collision near Dundalk<\/a>, with first responders arriving to what was described as a scene of \u201cutter devastation\u201d. <\/p>\n

The friends were named last night as Chloe McGee (23) and Shay Duffy (21) from Carrickmacross, Co Monaghan; Alan McCluskey (23) from Drumconrath, Co Meath; Dylan Commins (23) from Ardee, Co Louth and Chloe Hipson (21) from Lanarkshire, Scotland, who was living in Carrickmacross.<\/p>\n

The Volkswagen Golf they were travelling to Dundalk in was in collision with a Toyota Landcruiser just after 9pm in the townland of Gibstown. <\/p>\n

\"TheThe five crash victims. From left: Chloe McGee (23), Shay Duffy (21), Dylan Commins (23), Alan McCluskey (23) and Chloe Hipson (21). Photograph: The Irish Times\/Montage of handout imagery from An Garda S\u00edoch\u00e1na <\/p>\n

A sixth person travelling in the Volkswagen, a young man, survived and was being treated in hospital for serious injuries. The occupants of the Toyota, a man and a woman, were also receiving hospital treatment.<\/p>\n

One responder who attended the scene said the Volkswagen was \u201ccompletely destroyed\u201d and it was a \u201cmiracle\u201d that one of the occupants survived. \u201cIt was a deeply traumatic situation for everyone.\u201d <\/p>\n

President Catherine Connolly said she was \u201cdeeply saddened and shocked by the loss of five precious young lives in Louth\u201d. Taoiseach Mich\u00e9al Martin said he was \u201cnumbed and shocked at the horrific road crash\u201d.<\/p>\n

The collision happened on the eve of the World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims, which was on Sunday marked at a number of locations across the State, including at the Augustinan Church in nearby Drogheda.<\/p>\n

The number of deaths on Irish roads remains stubbornly high despite significant decreases across the rest of the European Union, with the crash in Co Louth bringing to 158 the total for this year, an increase of 10 on the same period last year.<\/p>\n

Garda\u00ed later said a motorcyclist, aged in his 50s, had died following a collision with a car on the R519 at Ballykevin near Kilmeedy, Co Limerick on Sunday afternoon.<\/p>\n

\"TheThe garda cordon on the N52 Ardee to Dundalk road near site of the crash on Sunday. Photograph: Alan Betson\/The Irish Times <\/p>\n

The five young people who died in Co Louth were part of a close-knit friend group. <\/p>\n

Ms McGee was a woodwork teacher in \u00d3 Fiaich College, Dundalk. School principal Padraig McGovern told RT\u00c9 news she was a \u201cvery valued member of our staff and an extremely energetic, positive person and someone who enjoyed life and who gave everything she had to her job\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr McCluskey worked as a fencing contractor in the northeast and had just returned from a holiday to Dubai with Ms McGee. In one of the pictures on social media of their travels, Ms McGee described them as being \u201cjust two big kids loving life\u201d.<\/p>\n

Mr Commins was a car and motocross enthusiast who worked as a mechanic in north Co Meath while Mr Duffy was an avid GAA player with the club Aughnamullen.<\/p>\n

Ms Hipson had moved from Scotland to Ireland to study quantity surveying at Dundalk Institute of Technology, where she was in her second year. <\/p>\n

[\u00a0\u2018Absolutely devastating\u2019: Fatal Louth crash leaves Meath village in shock at deaths of young peopleOpens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

T\u00e1naiste Simon Harris said a \u201cveil of deep sadness and shock\u201d had come over the country with the news.<\/p>\n

Supt Charlie Armstrong of Dundalk Garda station said the deaths would have a \u201cdeep impact on families and local communities\u201d in Carrickmacross, Dromconrath and Scotland.<\/p>\n

He paid tribute to emergency workers who attended the scene and treated the victims. \u201cThe scene was very difficult, in adverse weather conditions and the professionalism shown by all first responders and the care and respect shown to the five deceased was exemplary.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Garda investigation will focus on the cause of the crash and the road conditions at the time. It had been raining heavily before the incident and the stretch of road in Gibstown, close to the M1 motorway, was described by locals as particularly hazardous in wet conditions.<\/p>\n

An incident room has been established at Dundalk Garda station and investigators are appealing for people who were on the L3168 road between 8.30pm and 9.15pm on Saturday to come forward with any relevant information. <\/p>\n

Postmortems are due to be carried out on the deceased over the coming days.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The deaths of five young friends in a road crash in Co Louth at the weekend as they…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":144149,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,9690,61,60,9689,15949,3773,43,11318,9036],"class_list":{"0":"post-144148","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-ireland","8":"tag-an-garda-siochana","9":"tag-dundalk","10":"tag-ie","11":"tag-ireland","12":"tag-louth","13":"tag-meath","14":"tag-monaghan","15":"tag-news","16":"tag-road-safety","17":"tag-scotland"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144148","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=144148"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/144148\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/144149"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=144148"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=144148"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=144148"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}