{"id":329488,"date":"2026-03-05T02:32:07","date_gmt":"2026-03-05T02:32:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/329488\/"},"modified":"2026-03-05T02:32:07","modified_gmt":"2026-03-05T02:32:07","slug":"man-admits-dangerous-driving-causing-deaths-of-his-two-friends-while-intoxicated-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/329488\/","title":{"rendered":"Man admits dangerous driving causing deaths of his two friends while intoxicated \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A man has pleaded guilty to drink driving and to dangerous driving causing the deaths of two of his friends in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/limerick\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/limerick\/\">Co Limerick<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Patrick Carroll (21), of Drinagh Fivealley, Birr, Co Offaly, appeared at Limerick Circuit Criminal Court on Wednesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Darragh Dullea (21), from Clonakilty, Co Cork, and Cillian Kirwan (19), from Piltown, Co Kilkenny, died in the incident on the N69 at Ballyengland, near Askeaton, on February 20th, 2024.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The car Carroll was driving struck a wall. He and a third passenger required hospital treatment.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Lily Buckley, prosecuting, told the court Carroll, Dullea and Kirwan were friends studying at the Salesian Agricultural College.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Brian McInerney, defending, described it as a \u201cvery sensitive case\u201d and made an application for an adjournment. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He said a probation report in respect of his client would \u201cbe of benefit to the court and to the accused, in terms of his rehabilitation going forward\u201d.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Cillian Kirwan\u2019s mother, Sin\u00e9ad Molloy, and sister, \u00c1ine Kirwan, were present in court. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Judge Simon McAleese described the matter as \u201ca terrible nightmare to endure and to continue enduring\u201d. <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">\u201cI cannot say how sorry I am,\u201d the judge said. \u201cThis tragic incident made news headlines at the time. I do remember it. My sympathies are with the Dullea and Kirwan families.\u201d <\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">He ordered that a probation report be prepared and remanded Carroll on continuing bail. A date is expected to be fixed on April 27th for sentencing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A man has pleaded guilty to drink driving and to dangerous driving causing the deaths of two of&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":329489,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13553,46,51250,61,60,12969,1396,43,8286],"class_list":["post-329488","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-circuit-court","tag-cork","tag-criminal-courts","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-kilkenny","tag-limerick","tag-news","tag-offaly"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329488","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=329488"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/329488\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/329489"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=329488"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=329488"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=329488"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}