{"id":544397,"date":"2026-07-11T11:58:09","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T11:58:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544397\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T11:58:09","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T11:58:09","slug":"family-of-well-known-bohemians-fan-who-died-while-showing-new-car-to-mother-in-law-settle-action-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/544397\/","title":{"rendered":"Family of well-known Bohemians fan who died while showing new car to mother-in-law settle action \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

The family of a man who was killed in a freak accident while showing his new car to his mother-in-law has settled a High Court<\/a> action over his death.<\/p>\n

Derek Monaghan died as he attempted to stop the car which had been caused to take off after his mother-in-law sat in the driver\u2019s seat, the court heard.<\/p>\n

Hugh Mohan, counsel for Monaghan\u2019s family, told the court the family had been gathered near his mother-in-law\u2019s home looking at the car.<\/p>\n

Monaghan, a well-known volunteer and supporter of Bohemian Football Club in Dublin<\/a>, died after the car took off and he was dragged along as he tried to stop it, counsel said.<\/p>\n

The car crashed into a tree and overturned, while Monaghan was thrown to the side of the tree.<\/p>\n

Monaghan died as a result of the injuries he sustained in the accident, which occurred in a private car park adjacent to Grangegorman Villas, Dublin 7<\/a>, on August 17th, 2022. <\/p>\n

His mother-in-law Elizabeth Whelan ended up upside down in the car and suffered fractures to her back.<\/p>\n

Counsel said Monaghan\u2019s widow, Elayne Monaghan of Finglas, Dublin, had to sue her mother Elizabeth Whelan and the Motor Insurers\u2019 Bureau of Ireland<\/a> (MIBI) as a result of the accident as Whelan was not insured.<\/p>\n

\"TributesTributes to Bohemians club volunteer Derek Monaghan at Dalymount Park stadium following his death in 2022. Photograph: Tom Maher\/Inpho <\/p>\n

The settlement, which is confidential, is against the MIBI.<\/p>\n

In the proceedings, Monaghan and her two daughters also claimed for nervous shock as they had witnessed the accident. All of the claims were denied.<\/p>\n

At the inquest into Monaghan\u2019s death three years ago, Whelan said in a statement she had no interest in cars and had never driven a car in her life. <\/p>\n

She said she had sat in the front seat \u201cout of politeness\u201d when Monaghan invited her to do so. She said she had only intended to sit in the car and get out again.<\/p>\n

She told garda\u00ed she could not remember the crash and her next memory was being pulled out of the vehicle. She said she and her family were truly heartbroken.<\/p>\n

Cora Verner, a local resident who witnessed the incident, said Whelan was joking with Monaghan about learning to drive. Verner said she heard Monaghan telling his mother-in-law about putting in the clutch and moving into first gear.<\/p>\n

She said the car revved up and took off with Monaghan trying to get into the vehicle through the driver\u2019s door which had remained open. <\/p>\n

The coroner\u2019s court also heard Monaghan managed to get hold of the steering wheel to divert the car away from several parked vehicles, but appeared to lose his footing and got dragged along by the vehicle before it hit the tree.<\/p>\n

Noting the settlement, Judge Paul Coffey conveyed his deepest sympathy to the Monaghan family on what he said was an unusual tragedy.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The family of a man who was killed in a freak accident while showing his new car to…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":544398,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[615,71903,73,61,60,53595,43],"class_list":["post-544397","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-dublin","tag-dublin-7","tag-high-court","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-motor-insurers-bureau-of-ireland","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544397","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=544397"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/544397\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/544398"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=544397"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=544397"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=544397"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}