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A PARISH PRIEST has described the “frightening” moment a car ploughed through a crowd attending a religious event in Dundalk yesterday.
One man was left seriously injured, and a number of others were also injured, after a car drove at speed through Dowdallshill grave yard in Dundalk, Co Louth during the annual Blessing of the Graves ceremony yesterday afternoon.
The man was rushed to Our Lady of Lourdes hospital in Drogheda, while the driver fled from the scene.
A man in his 20s was later arrested following the incident and remains in custody today.
Fr Mark O Hagan, parish priest at St Patrick’s church in Dundalk, was delivering the service when he saw “hundreds of people just running and screaming and shouting”.
“It was coming to the end of the Blessing of the Graves, I was at the podium with the choir and a number of other priests, and all of a sudden I could hear shouting and screaming to my left,” he said on RTÉ Radio 1′s Morning Ireland programme.
“I popped my head around the corner and I could see hundreds of people just running and screaming and shouting, and somebody shouted up ‘father phone for an ambulance’.
“Children were crying, people just walking in disbelief at what had happened, fear in people’s faces.
“The car sped past me up to the upper car park, he seemed to do a wheelie and hit a number of cars in the car park, and come back again.
“Coming back I tried to instinctively just put my left hand out from where I was – I was way off the path – to sort of say ‘please please try to stop, stop or slow down’.
“The driver then mounted the kerb and was coming towards myself, when I instinctively jumped out of the way, and I thought the car itself was making its way to the podium.”
Videos of the incident were shared across social media, and the dark-coloured car was then driven out of the car park and onto the street before eventually coming to a stop.
“He did a U-turn and came back the way he came and sped down where he came, and down the left hand side and out of the grave yard.
“At this stage then I went over to the man who had been injured and anointed him and spoke and started asking people to get off the path, because at this stage we didn’t know where the car was or what was happening.”
The man who was seriously injured remains in hospital, with Fr O Hagan saying “he was moved from Drogheda hospital to Beaumont hospital last night with serious head injuries”.
“It was very frightening, people just in disbelief, pure disbelief at what was going on. It was a religious ceremony… it’s a community [and] family day out, where people come together and make a day out of it and go out.”
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Makes sense, young fellas have been passing lumps of turf off as hash for decades
@Fenster: haha very good
Bord na Schmoka
@Frank Discussion: Bord na Juana diversify more like…
@Frank Discussion: Bord Na Stoner
People will grow there own thanks no need for another cartel ripping the people off
Makes sense. Border na Móna is running out of peat. Saves the Gardai running around arresting growers, and keeps Big Pharma’s nose out. Let us, the taxpayers, benefit for once. Grow loads and become an exporter. It would ease the trials and tribulations we’re going to suffer after the b*lls up of Brexit. Get on with it now and stop twittering about *the future*.
Grow your own dope….. plant a FG td
@Gasher: That’s so funny
Whole new meaning to a bale of briquettes!
Open tender. Imagine the cost the state will incur to set this up, pensions, etc. Also, a private company can be taxed.
Best idea I’ve heard in years
Bord na Stóna
Clearly he has no idea and just thinks you can grow this on the bogs of Ireland.
The reality is a bit more scientific.
@paul kelly: The plant can grow in this country if altered enough and given enough help.
@Mr Snrub: Yes and penicillin can grow on orange peel, but to make medicinal canabis is a lot more complicated.
The state owning entire industries where it’s possible to have them open to private companies is not a good idea, and not the place we should be starting. It’s only politics that stand between the country has proper legislation to allow for cultivation, we don’t need to shoehorn it in as a state scheme. Medical patients should be allowed to grow their own. There’s no need to be putting further financial burden on people who are sick.
Bud na Mona
A good idea from an Irish politician. We should have him stuffed.
Theres Going to be a shortage of skins in the midlands…….
They have no idea what they are on about. Why does cannabis grow in the tropics?? Not cabbage???
@Mike Rugby Nuts: I don’t know much about it but would it not be good for hemp. They might be just the group to try Large scale hemp production for building materials and to replace a lot of plastic.
@Mike Rugby Nuts:
With 80,000 hectares and continuing global warming, BNM’s future looks bright on many fronts for the long-term. eg solar energy farms, large-scale medical marijuana production.
In the short-term, a few large greenhouses would suffice to supply all of Ireland’s medical marijuana requirements.
Mr. Canny should roll this idea along, for it’s a brilliant one. A Government Minister finally thinking outside the box!
@Rory J Leonard: Yes, it seems like a brilliant idea, and what a difference it would make to the hundreds laid off.
@Rory J Leonard: If they were that interested in the Carbon issue these bogs would be restored. The likes of windfarms are just a greedy grab for susidy money that is driving up all our energy bills with very little environmental benefit
@Mike Rugby Nuts: no cannabis grows pretty much all over the world – its’ a common misconception that it needs extreme temperatures. The idea of planting it in a bog though I don’t know about that … seems like this is more driven by jobs than it is by product quality but they do say the need to do tests first though so props to them for that at least.
I hear it’s pretty bog stand stuff…
Smoking !
so this is what’s holding up the industry
The state owning entire industries where it’s possible to have them open to private companies is not a good idea, and not the place we should be starting. It’s only politics that stand between the country has proper legislation to allow for cultivation, we don’t need to shoehorn it in as a state scheme. Medical patients should be allowed to grow their own. There’s no need to be putting further financial burden on people who are sick.
I can’t wait to see the day that Ireland will free the shackles and allow medicinal cannabis to be sold, it will help millions of people, but will the big pharma companies allow this to happen?
have your say