Mayo crash: Gardaí attempt to contact family of woman and two girls ...

Gardaí are continuing in their efforts to contact family members of a woman and two young girls who died in a road traffic collision in Co Mayo on Tuesday.

A section of the N17 near Claremorris remains closed on Wednesday morning, with local diversions in place, the Garda Press Office said.

The crash occurred around 2pm on Tuesday afternoon, when the car driven by the deceased woman collided with an articulated lorry.

Details on the identities of the victims are yet to be released. It is believed that the victims of the crash are related, and from the Galway area.

It’s understood that some family members of the deceased are abroad at present. It’s understood that the woman’s partner is a project manager, working in Ethiopia.

The bodies of the deceased were transferred to Mayo University Hospital for postmortem examination following the crash.

The lorry driver involved in the crash was uninjured.

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Richard Finn, an independent councillor based in Claremorris, told The Irish Times on Wednesday that the local community was “in a state of shock and sadness”.

He expressed condolences with the family and relatives of the woman and two young girls lost in the crash.

Mr Finn also paid tribute to the efforts of the emergency services who responded to the scene on Tuesday afternoon.

Michael Loftus, Cathaoirleach of Mayo County Council, said that Tuesday was a “dark day” for Co Mayo, referencing both the N17 crash and the deaths of two pensioners, Tom and Eileen Mahon, in a house fire in Swinford.

“The county had five deaths in one day,” Mr Loftus said, speaking to The Irish Times on Wednesday morning. “It’s unprecedented.”

“Regardless of where they are from, they are from a community that’s been devastated,” he said of the crash victims.

He said his thoughts and prayers were with their bereaved families members.

Fr Peter Gannon, a priest in Claremorris, said that Tuesday had been a “dark and miserable day”, but when news of the crash broke, “it got much darker than that”.

He said that there has been a number of accidents on the road down through the years. “The road has claimed a lot of lives.”

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