Tipperary crash: ‘There’s a real sense of disbelief here, particularly given what happened in Clonmel on Friday’

Another community in Co Tipperary has been engulfed with grief at the news that three lives were lost on a road near Cashel – just days after four people died in a crash in nearby Clonmel.

People may have been going about their business on the town’s Main Street on Wednesday morning, but the sense of shock was evident as people spoke of how Tom (45) and Bridget (46, also known as Bridgie) O’Reilly and their three-year-old grandson, also Tom, had perished in a single-vehicle crash outside the town on Tuesday evening.

The mayor of Cashel, Fine Gael councillor Declan Burgess, said the news that three had been killed and two other members of the same family had been seriously injured had left everyone in the town reeling since news of the tragedy broke just after 9pm that night. The child’s father, Tom O’Reilly jnr, and mother, Diane (both 22), were the driver and front-seat passenger in the vehicle.

“This is devastating news for the community here in Cashel – it’s just awful, particularly coming just days after the terrible tragedy in our neighbouring town of Clonmel on Friday night when four young people died. We’ve been struck with another awful blow,” he told The Irish Times.

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“It’s hard to comprehend – people are just shocked and numbed at the loss of three lives, but it’s an ongoing situation with two others still quite critical in Tipperary University Hospital in Clonmel. Hopefully they will come through, but we are still trying to come to terms with the enormity of it all.”

Parish priest Fr Enda Brady had attended at the scene on the quiet country road in the Windmill area on Tuesday night and gave the Last Rites to Tom and Bridgie, and their young grandson, something he sensed was greatly appreciated by their family in the Traveller community.

“The O’Reillys have lived at Waller’s Lot near the graveyard for generations so would be well known – there’s a real sense of disbelief here, particularly given what happened in Clonmel on Friday because there’s a real connection between Cashel and Clonmel, family-wise and friend-wise.

“And then of course when you hear that a child has been killed, it makes it worse – it’s cruel, absolutely cruel, no area deserves this. But when it comes to your own area, as it has here in South Tipperary this week, it’s very sobering. It makes everyone pause and think.

“There’s a complete numbness around the town this morning – obviously our prayers are with the family and with the two members still in hospital and hopefully they will come through. I have no doubt the community will rally around and provide every support they can but it’s unspeakably sad.”

[ Tipperary crash: Grandparents and boy (3) who died in Cashel are named ]

The priest added that “Travellers are people of great faith and the O’Reillys are no different and it was important for the family to hear that I had given the Last Rites last night to Tom and Bridgie and little Tom. It wasn’t easy to anoint them in such horrific circumstances.”

Mags Casey of the Tipperary Rural Traveller Project knew the O’Reillys well and described Tom and Bridgie as a devoted couple who adored their children. Young Tom will also be hugely missed as he was popular with his great-grandparents and many aunts and uncles and cousins.

“Tom and Bridgie were first cousins and they married when they were 16 – they were madly in love. Generations of the O’Reilly family have been born and bred in Tipperary and Tom’s parents, Willie and Nellie, are traditional Travellers, they live in a barrel wagon at Waller’s Lot.

“Tom was a kind and humble man. He was a loving father who adored his children, and they went everywhere with him. They would be playing with him in the trailer, and he used to take them swimming or out with the horses and dogs – he was the kind of man anyone would want as a father.

“Bridgie was very shy but she was very loving and caring and she was very articulate in terms of how she wanted the best for her children in terms of education, and she would have always pushed that her children would get a good education.

“She was gifted in terms of how she raised 10 children and managed when they were living in a small old trailer, then they got an old house from the council. She and Tom just loved and adored each other so much and they just poured that love into the children as well.

“They were mad about small Tom – he was as smart as a fox, always out with the horses and the dogs. You could talk to him as if he were 20, he was dead smart. I used to call him Blondie because of his blonde head, he was so clever and was Tom and Diane’s only child. It’s heartbreaking.”