A horrific head-on crash on the M9 motorway in County Kildare has left five teenage boys dead and a Carlow family, including a seven-year-old boy, fighting for their lives in hospital. The collision happened in the early hours of Sunday morning near Moone, sending shockwaves through communities on both sides of the Irish Sea.
Sisters Alma and Niamh Kinsella, both in their 30s, were in the front seats of their Hyundai when the crash occurred. Their younger sister, Ellie Henderson, was in the back with her young nephew. The four, all from the Carlow area, were on their way to Dublin Airport to fly to a family wedding in England when the collision happened.
The two sisters in their 30s remain in serious condition at Tallaght University Hospital. Their younger sister was transferred from St Luke's Hospital in Kilkenny to St Vincent's University Hospital in Dublin, where she is being treated for serious injuries. The boy is being treated at Children's Health Ireland at Crumlin.
Local Carlow councillor Fergal Browne called it "a very dark day" for the town. Fellow councillor Paul Doogue described the incident as "life-changing" and said "there's no point in saying different, it's actually shocking."
Ken Murnane, mayor of Carlow, said the community was "devastated by what's happened" and that his thoughts were with the injured family, adding he hoped they would "make a complete recovery."
Stolen car driven the wrong way twice
Gardaí Síochána (Ireland's police) investigating the crash initially believed four people had died, but the remains of a fifth victim were only discovered once the wreckage of the stolen BMW was moved. The damage to the vehicle was so severe that emergency responders could not reach the bodies for hours.
The teenage boys, some related to one another, were wearing balaclavas or otherwise masked at the time of the crash.
Gardaí believe the group is linked to a wider network of young men in the Carlow-Kildare area known to police, sometimes referred to as the "Lucky Dip" gang, a loosely organized car theft group that has reportedly spawned several copycat crews of teenage boys across the country in recent months.
Investigators say the BMW had been driven the wrong way down the M9 twice in the same night. Gardaí first tried to stop the car in Athy at around 2am after receiving reports of males trying to break into homes and vehicles in the area, but the driver fled. The car later did a U-turn at a service station near Kilcullen before returning to the motorway going the wrong way for a second time.
Gardaí had positioned tire deflation devices near an exit at Moone, but rather than leave the motorway there, the BMW continued at speed and crashed head-on into the family's car.
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"Appalling" behavior
Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly said the crash showed how "irresponsible and dangerous" wrong-way driving is, and suggested it is sometimes carried out for social media attention. He said this kind of reckless behavior is made "even more appalling" when done in pursuit of online likes, regardless of the devastating impact it could have on innocent people.
Kelly said gardaí do what they can to intervene when vehicles are driven the wrong way, but that other road users must also be considered, making such interventions "really challenging."
Gardaí believe the driver deliberately went onto the wrong carriageway to evade a possible pursuit, likely aware that patrol cars would not follow against the flow of traffic. It's understood gardaí were not actively pursuing the vehicle at the time of the crash.
The Garda Representative Association (GRA), the body representing rank-and-file gardaí, has since called for better training to deal with drivers who drive on the wrong side of the road. GRA representative John Joe O'Connell said gangs of teenage boys are increasingly trying to outdo one another with videos of confrontations with gardaí posted online, some of which end in wrong-way driving on major roads. He urged parents to talk to their teenage sons about the real-life consequences of getting behind the wheel of a stolen car.
Investigation and postmortems
The bodies of the five teenagers have been taken to Naas General Hospital for post-mortem examinations. Fiosrú, Ireland's police watchdog, has also become involved in the case, as is required whenever a death or serious injury occurs around the time of Garda contact.
The tragedy has drawn an outpouring of grief from a wide range of community and political voices in Carlow and Kildare, with many expressing sympathy both for the family fighting to recover and for the families of the teenagers who died. Tusla, Ireland's child and family agency, said its staff are working with local partner organizations to support everyone affected by what it called a "tragic and distressing incident."
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