{"id":145114,"date":"2025-11-17T20:06:08","date_gmt":"2025-11-17T20:06:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/145114\/"},"modified":"2025-11-17T20:06:08","modified_gmt":"2025-11-17T20:06:08","slug":"gardai-believe-co-louth-crash-survivors-can-help-with-investigation-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/145114\/","title":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed believe Co Louth crash survivors can help with investigation \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Garda\u00ed believe the survivors of the Co Louth crash that claimed five lives over the weekend will be able to explain the events leading up the fatal crash<\/a>, the worst road-traffic collision in the Republic for a decade.<\/p>\n

The group of friends who were killed were going to socialise in Dundalk on Saturday night when the Volkswagen Golf they were travelling in collided with a Toyota Land Cruiser just after 9pm on Saturday in the townland of Gibstown.<\/p>\n

The crash was believed to have been head-on and to have caused the Golf, carrying six people, to catch fire. <\/p>\n

The two people in the Land Cruiser did not suffer life-threatening injuries, and investigating garda\u00ed in Dundalk are hopeful they could offer vital assistance during interviews in the coming days.<\/p>\n

They are believed to be from the local area. The sole survivor travelling in the Golf was more seriously injured, and it is not clear when he may be available for interview.<\/p>\n

A senior Garda<\/a> officer described the scene of the crash as \u201cdifficult\u201d for those who attended. Supt Charlie Armstrong said garda\u00ed who attended then had to inform the parents and other family members that their loved ones had been killed. <\/p>\n

Supt Armstrong, who is based in Dundalk, said the families and friends of all five victims would, in time, seek answers for how the crash happened. The Garda investigators working on the investigation would work hard to provide those answers, he said.<\/p>\n

While everyone in the Garda was warned from the time they were training at the Garda College in Templemore, Co Tipperary, that they may be called upon to attend very difficult scenes, they all hoped it would never happen, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cYou see things you can\u2019t unsee; the uniform is not a shield for that,\u201d he said. \u201cThe members who attended the scene range in service from three months to 30 years. They finished duty at 7am on Sunday and they were back working again last night. They were given the option of being replaced by their colleagues but they wanted to come in, they wanted to work with their colleagues.\u201d<\/p>\n

The friends killed were named 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

\"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

Supt Armstrong said the emergency services personnel who attended the scene \u2013 including firefighters based at Dundalk, HSE ambulance crews and his own Garda personnel \u2013 encountered \u201ca difficult scene\u201d. <\/p>\n

Conditions had been \u201cwet and windy\u201d around the time of the crash, which took place outside Ardee at about 9pm.<\/p>\n

A senior officer has been appointed to lead the investigation at Dundalk Garda station into the cause of the tragedy. Postmortems will be carried out on the remains of the five victims over the coming days. <\/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

The vehicles involved in the crash will be examined for clues, though the Volkswagen the five deceased were in was badly damaged by fire.<\/p>\n

Ms Hipson\u2019s friend described her as having the \u201ckindest soul\u201d. Chantel Cullen said she would never forget their friendship, saying Ms Hipson would be \u201cforever 21\u201d.<\/p>\n

\u201cMy girl, my beautiful bestie. Words can\u2019t even explain how heartbroken I am. The most kindest soul with the most pure smile,\u201d she wrote on social media. <\/p>\n

Another one of the victims, Chloe McGee, had just taken up a permanent teaching job at \u00d3 Fiaich Institute of Further Education in Dundalk. The institute\u2019s principal, Padraig McGovern, said he spoke to her on Friday about how much she was looking forward to the weekend.<\/p>\n

He described her as being \u201cfull of fun … full of achievement and success\u201d, with her permanent job at the school \u2013 as a woodwork and construction teacher \u2013 recently confirmed.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe became very much a part of the fabric of our school. She loved to help her students, loved to go the extra mile,\u201d Mr McGovern told RT\u00c9 Radio 1\u2019s Morning Ireland.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was very good at her subject. And was also the sort of girl that was involved in everything, all sorts of staff activities, any sort of new projects, anything that we were looking at to develop she was there and willing to take part.\u201d<\/p>\n

On Sunday, President Catherine Connolly said she was \u201cdeeply saddened and shocked by the loss of five precious young lives in Louth\u201d. <\/p>\n

Taoiseach Miche\u00e1l Martin said the country is \u201cnumb and shocked\u201d at the scale of the tragedy.<\/p>\n

He said there is \u201cdevastation\u201d for their families, friends and communities and it is \u201cvery, very difficult to comprehend such a loss\u201d.<\/p>\n

Speaking alongside other Opposition leaders on Monday, Sinn F\u00e9in leader Mary Lou McDonald paid tribute to the \u201cfive young lives … so traumatically and tragically lost\u201d. .<\/p>\n

Labour Party leader Ivana Bacik expressed her \u201cdeepest condolences\u201d to all bereaved in the \u201chorrific crash\u201d.<\/p>\n

Holly Cairns, the Social Democrats leader, said: \u201cAll of our thoughts are with the families and friends and communities of those young people who so tragically lost their life over the weekend.\u201d<\/p>\n

Green Party leader Roderic O\u2019Gorman also offered his sympathies to the families who lost loved ones. \u201cIt\u2019s really hard to understand the degree of devastation that five communities, families, friends, communities, will face following such a tragic crash.\u201d<\/p>\n

The crash in Co Louth brought to 158 the total number of road fatalities for this year in the Republic, an increase of 10 on the same period last year.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Garda\u00ed believe the survivors of the Co Louth crash that claimed five lives over the weekend will be…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":145115,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[45,9690,61,60,9689,43,11318],"class_list":{"0":"post-145114","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-news","14":"tag-road-safety"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145114","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=145114"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/145114\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/145115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=145114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=145114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=145114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}