Weekend Of Death On Irish Roads

A total of eight people have died on Irish roads this weekend.

As the PSNI open investigations into four road deaths in two accidents, in the Irish Republic, Gardaí investigations have also begun into the deaths of four other people killed in separate road crashes.

A teenager died following the first of the two NI road accidents, in Co Down.

He was later named as Darren Brown, 19, who came from Downpatrick.

He was killed in the two-vehicle crash on the Belfast Road near Saintfield shortly before 11pm on Saturday.

Most recently, in the early hours of Monday, two men and a woman have also died in a car crash in Co Tyrone.

Four other people were also taken to Craigavon hospital by ambulance after the collision between two cars on the Drum Road in Cookstown, which has now reopened to traffic after overnight closure.

It happened shortly before 1am and reports indicate that when the emergency services arrived at the scene, they found a man and a woman already dead.

Another man died later. Fire crews had to use hydraulic equipment to cut people out of the two cars.

A man and a woman who were injured in the accident are in a serious but stable condition in hospital. Two younger people are in a stable condition

Meanwhile, in the Republic, the woman killed in a collision on the N8 at Cloonlough, Mitchelstown, Co Cork on Saturday has just been named as Ciara O'Brien, 26, of Bellview, Fermoy, Co Cork.

She died following a two car collision at Cloonlough at around 6.30pm that evening.

Earlier, two teenagers died following a road crash in Lucan, Dublin.

Three others were injured in the single car crash, which happened at Chapel Hill at around 11am.

Two men, believed to be in their late teens, later died from their injuries.

Elsewhere, a 26-year-old man died in a road crash in Co Mayo.

The man was a passenger in a car that hit another car at Drumadoon, Balla, Castlebar, at around 10pm on Friday night.

Meanwhile, a man in his 40s and a child are both in critical condition after a crash on the M50 in Dublin.

See: Shock Weekend On Irish Roads As Eight Die

(BMcC/JM)