Tributes have been paid to a Kilkenny teenager, Cillian Kirwan, who lost his life in a collision in Co Limerick on Tuesday night.
Two young men were killed and two others were injured in a road crash in the crash that happened near Askeaton.
They were all in their late teens and early 20s, and were students in an agricultural course run jointly by the Technological University of the Shannon (TUS) and Salesian Agricultural College in Pallaskenry.
The students had been travelling in a car that struck a wall on the N69 at Ballyengland, near Askeaton, at around 7.25pm on Tuesday night.
Cillian Kirwan, (19), from Templeorum in Piltown, Co Kilkenny, and his friend Darragh Dullea, (20), from Clonakilty, Co Cork, were passengers in the car.
A former player with Piltown AFC, Cillian's former soccer club remembered him as 'a very happy pleasant boy to coach with an abundance of talent and great commitment'.
In a statement, Piltown AFC said: "Such was the commitment he showed, he would cycle the six or seven kilometres from his house in Templeorum to the grounds in Kildalton Park in all sorts of weather in dark winter evenings when his mam was working night shifts.
"Piltown AFC would like to offer their most heartfelt condolences to Cillian's family and friends, also to our own coaches and players that had a small but very happy part in Cillian's life."
The two other men, including the driver, from Charleville, Co Cork, and Birr, Co Offaly, were taken by ambulance to University Hospital Limerick, where they were treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
The four young men had been in their final year of their two-year course in agricultural mechanisation, gaining qualifications for working with farm machinery.
“I would like to send my condolences to the families of the two students that have tragically lost their lives, and our thoughts and prayers are with their families and their friends and classmates, and I also wish the two students who are in hospital a speedy recovery,” Salesian’s College principal Derek O’Donoghue said.
Mr O’Donoghue added the four men returned to Pallaskenry in January after eight months' placement, “so they are really just five weeks back here in college”.
“It’s very unfortunate,” he said.
Exemplary students
Paying tribute, Mr O’Donoghue described the four men as “exemplary students, hardworking [and] diligent.”
Mr O’Donoghue said staff from TUS were providing counselling and other psychological supports to students.
“The four occupants of the car were all on the same course together, and they were all residential students here in Pallaskenry,” he explained.
Adam Teskey a local Fine Gael councillor, offered his sympathies to the four men’s families and said the local community was left “absolutely stunned” and “in a total state of shock after this immense tragedy”.
“Two families have suffered the ultimate loss of life and for that I want to express my sincere sympathies to them.”
Cllr Teskey described the N69 as “a dangerous road that is no stranger to fatal road collisions”.
The road was closed throughout Tuesday night and into Wednesday while a forensic examination of the scene was carried out.
Gardaí have appealed for witnesses of the crash to contact Askeaton Garda station 061-601 630 or any Garda station.
Reporting by David Raleigh
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