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The daughters of one of the two women killed while in Co Louth while crossing the main Dublin to Derry road on Monday evening, have paid tribute to her.
Josie Duff (79) was described as “the most selfless person on the planet,” by her daughters Fiona and Mary.
Mrs Duff was with her friend and cousin, Kathy McDonald (70), when the accident occurred at 6.30pm on the N2 near Ardee, County Louth.
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The women had just got off a bus from Dublin and were crossing the road to Josie’s car which was parked at the Hunterstown Inn, to drive a distance of about 4km home to Ardee.
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The N2, which has a speed limit of 100km/h, was closed for much of Tuesday as
Garda forensic collision investigators examined the stretch of road.
Both women were pronounced dead at the scene and their bodies taken to Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda for a post-mortem.
The driver of the car, believed to be a man from the area, was uninjured.
‘Selfless person’
Mrs Duff’s daughter paid tribute to their mother while waiting for their siblings Loreto, Peter and Kevin to return from the west coast of America on Wednesday morning.
Fiona and Mary said, “She is the most selfless person on the planet and she helped everybody other than herself and was doing it for years.
“She was nominated ‘person of the year’ for all her community efforts and work. She had a room named for herself in the wheelchair association,” her daughters said.
Mrs Duff, who had 11 grand-children and three great grand-children was well known for her work with the Irish Wheelchair Association and with Ardee Hospice Care and had tea with former president Mary McAleese “for all the work she had done in the community.”
Fr Michael Murtagh, a former parish priest in Ardee said Mrs Duff was, “with John (her husband), always happy and smiling, always elegant, positive and charitable.
“Kathy (McDonald) was a senior nurse/manager in Moore Hall Lodge Ardee for many years. She was reserved in manner, extremely professional and caring and her leadership qualities were obviously highly regarded.”
Fr Murtagh expressed his sympathies to the families “on this extraordinarily tragic occasion.”
Speed limit
Ardee Cllr Jim Tenanty said he knew both women very well.
“Josie was an angel and one of the co-founders of Ardee Hospice Care. Kathy had a florist shop in Ardee and lost her husband Séamus recently. The whole community is deeply shocked,” he said.
He said that at the last meeting of Ardee Municipal District he looked for the speed limit at Hunterstown to be reduced.
Cllr Tenanty said as motorists travel northwards towards Ardee town, “The speed limit decreases from 100km/h to 60km/h all of a sudden and I wanted the speed reduced at (Hunterstown) to 80km/h.”
A spokesperson for Louth County Council said the road has the “appropriate speed limit” and is “fit for purpose”.
Gardaí in Ardee have asked anyone who witnessed Monday night’s crash to contact them at Ardee garda station on 041-6871130, the Garda Confidential Line 1800-666-111 or any garda station.