{"id":652669,"date":"2026-08-23T19:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-23T19:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/652669\/"},"modified":"2026-08-23T19:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-23T19:04:09","slug":"m9-crash-local-td-to-meet-families-of-carlow-teens-killed-in-collision-last-weekend-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/652669\/","title":{"rendered":"M9 crash: Local TD to meet families of Carlow teens killed in collision last weekend \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

Carlow<\/a>-based Government TD Jennifer Murnane O\u2019Connor<\/a> will \u201csit down\u201d with the families of two local teenagers killed in last weekend\u2019s M9 crash<\/a> to give them \u201chelp and support\u201d.<\/p>\n

The Minister of State, speaking on Friday as she attended a vigil<\/a> in the town for four locals seriously injured in the head-on collision on Sunday August 16th, said it was a \u201cdevastating time\u201d for Carlow.<\/p>\n

The funeral of Alex McCarthy (16) from Carlow, one of the five teenagers killed in the incident, took place on Friday<\/a>. He was killed when the BMW they were travelling in drove the wrong way down the northbound section of the M9 near Moone, Co Kildare<\/a>, around 3am. <\/p>\n

The funerals of Joe Carthy (15) from Athy and of Kamil Pustkowski (17) from Limerick were also on Friday<\/a>. <\/p>\n

The funeral of Jeremy O\u2019Brien (18), also from Carlow, takes place on Monday, with that of Jack Kennedy (17), from Athy, Co Kildare, on Tuesday. <\/p>\n

\u201cI feel it\u2019s more appropriate for me to contact the [O\u2019Brien and McCarthy] families [next week], sit down with them and see what I can do to give them my help and support,\u201d said Murnane O\u2019Connor. <\/p>\n

She said she knew the family of sisters Ella Hendricken, Niamh and Alma Kinsella and the seven-year-old nephew Yemi, who were en route to Dublin Airport when the crash happened. <\/p>\n

Separately, organisations from Dublin\u2019s north inner-city working with at-risk young people said recent commentary and language that \u201cdehumanised\u201d the five teenagers killed was \u201cdamaging\u201d. <\/p>\n

\u201cDescribing them … as though their lives had no value and their deaths did not matter … deepens divisions, causes further pain to grieving families and makes it more difficult to have the serious conversation that is now required,\u201d said the North Inner City Community Coalition.<\/p>\n

[\u00a0M9 crash: Wrong-way collision survivor \u2018cannot believe it has happened again\u2019Opens in new window<\/a>\u00a0]<\/p>\n

Andy O\u2019Hara, co-ordinator of Uisce which advocates for active drug users, said it was possible to \u201chave compassion\u201d for the families of both the injured and the dead. <\/p>\n

\u201cWe won\u2019t prevent the next tragedy by simply deciding that some people are beyond care,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n

The reasons some young people from marginalised communities were getting involved in criminality had to be confronted. <\/p>\n

\u201cThat doesn\u2019t remove personal responsibility, but it helps us understand when we\u2019re looking at prevention,\u201d he said. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Carlow-based Government TD Jennifer Murnane O\u2019Connor will \u201csit down\u201d with the families of two local teenagers killed in…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":652670,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[40],"tags":[9,10,1845,18,13,14,6,19,17,248039,3625,11,12,15,16,5,11697,7,8],"class_list":["post-652669","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-ireland","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-carlow","tag-eire","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-jennifer-murnane-oconnor","tag-kildare","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-road-safety","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117146384210159617","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652669","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=652669"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/652669\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/652670"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=652669"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=652669"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=652669"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}