EDITORIAL: A loss felt in every community

Leaving Cert results day should be the beginning of a young person’s adult life.

Every student in Clonmel should now be preparing to head off to begin their new lives, happy in their achievements, while their families cheer them on.

It is cruel, senseless and heartbreaking that the lives of Grace and Luke McSweeney, Zoey Coffey and Nicole Murphy should end the way they did last Friday.

An estimated 2,000 people attended the vigil on Sunday, and many more have expressed their sympathy online.

News of the accident was reported not only in Ireland but the UK as well, which just shows the loss of these young people was felt much farther than Tipperary.

The communities of Ballypatrick, Kilsheelan and Clonmel are missing four of their own. These young people were part of the fabric of their communities. Those grieving are family and friends and they have lost most of all and the pain they must feel is unimaginable. Others still are mourning the loss of young people they taught, coached or trained with. And more still will have known them and their families, watched them grow up and wished them well that morning.

There really is no part of a community that doesn’t feel a loss of this magnitude. In times of tragedy it is natural to think of our own loved ones and remember those who have passed in accidents in our own areas.

Spare a thought also for the emergency service workers who attended the scene and who will have done their work with skill and professionalism. They may not feel the loss in the same way as a community or indeed the country, but one can imagine they feel a particular kind of sadness.

Everything we say here others have said over the past few days, and none of it will come close to offering any form of comfort.

But know this. We at the Tipperary Star and The Nationalist are thinking of you, and we are so very sorry for your loss.

We hope that we have remembered your loved ones’ lives in a respectful and dignified way.