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TRIBUTES HAVE BEEN paid after three members of the same family died yesterday after the car they were in collided with a truck in Mayo.
The tragic incident happened on the N17 Galway to Sligo Road at Lisduff at around 12.30pm.
The three victims have been named locally as Marcella Wilson, in her 40s, her seven-year-old son Seán, and her mother Mary Ann, in her 70s.
It is understood that the family were travelling to Galway. They only decided to drive because they had missed a bus at Castlebar.
The driver of the truck wasn’t injured.
Speaking on RTÉ Radio One’s Morning Ireland, Father Kevin Hegarty said the Wilsons were a “well-liked and well-respected family in the community”.
“I want to begin by offering my sympathy, my deepest sympathy to Mary Ann’s husband and to Marcella’s other children Kelly, Amy and Anthony, and to such the wider Wilson family,” Father Hegarty said.
Yesterday afternoon was absolutely devastating here. Earlier in the day, in this football-obsessed county, all the talk was of Mayo in the All-Ireland final next week.
Suddenly, all that stopped. A kind of numbness, a kind of silence descended on the community.
Marcella cared for her four children on her own and was helped by her parents.
Fr Hegarty, who was one of Marcella’s teachers at when she was at school, said that she was “very friendly, very cooperative and very courteous”.
He said that it has been a very difficult year for the community of Mayo as Rescue 116 went down off the west coast with four crew members onboard last March.
“Just six months ago, four people in the 116 helicopter died off the peninsula here, so in many ways, tragic deaths have stalked the community here for the past few months,” he said.
“The community here got a great reputation during the aftermath of the tragic 116 crash because of the concern that they showed for the families of the victims.
“It’s a close-knit community, we all know each other and we all gather to be with people who are in any kind of distress.
All of us in the community want to offer the Wilson family our deepest sympathy. We’re well aware that our words are gestures that can’t meet the reality of the anguish that they’re facing, but we do want them to know that we care.
The Mayo crash was just one of two tragic incidents on Irish roads yesterday.
In Cork, two people died in a traffic collision on a dual carriageway.
The fatal three-vehicle crash happened on the N20 Cork to Mallow Road at the Waterloo Junction at around 11am.
A man and a woman in their 60s were pronounced dead at the scene after the car that they were passengers in was involved in a collision with a truck.
The driver of the car and the third passenger (a man and a woman who were also in their 60s) were taken to Cork University Hospital with injuries described as not life-threatening.
The driver of the second car involved was taken to Cork University Hospital with injuries described as not life-threatening. The driver of the truck was uninjured.
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