Kerry team fan drowned in canal after night out, inquest hears

A 25-year-old Kerry supporter in Dublin for the All-Ireland football final last year drowned after a night out with friends when he fell into the Royal Canal, an inquest has heard.

Micheál O'Donoghue, from Ross Road, Killarney, Co Kerry, was found dead by Spanish woman Laura Lopez on the morning of September 20th, 2014, as she cycled on the canal towpath.

Heading towards Cabra before 8am, Ms Lopez said something had caught her eye.

“I wasn’t sure what it was but when I looked closely I could see a hand and I knew it was a person,” she said.

Calling for better safety measures at Lock 6, where an embankment had fallen in, the young man’s father, Harry O’Donoghue, told Dublin Coroner’s Court: “Just make it safer, that’s all. It will save another life.”

The postmortem confirmed the cause of death as drowning.

It also showed that Mr O’Donoghue had an “extremely high level of alcohol” in his blood.

The coroner returned a verdict of death by misadventure.