Death, the leveller

Please say a prayer for the young man who was killed just 300 metres from our front door this morning. A fine young man, just up for the night from Tipperary for a friend's 21st party at the Barna Golf Club. It seems sometime after 2.30am, he walked out on the back bog road, as I have done a hundred times, the better to enjoy the spectacular view across the bay, or perhaps the extraordinary sight of a sparkling Jupiter, reflecting on the bay below, luminescent under a clear sky and a pale, waxing moon...when suddenly, Death, 'the leveller', in the guise of a powerful car driven by an over-confident young driver, on what should have been an empty bog-road, swooped down on our little patch of bog and snatched a boy's future.

Poof, gone in a second, the boreen gouged by parallel skid-marks, a banged-up car in the ditch, two frightened fugitives running from the scene, an ordinary reaction to an unfortunate incident, but for the crumpled body half-hidden in the still-purple heather on the side of the road, patethic, alone, for nought all the time his mother doted on him, his dad dreamed for him, his friends wished for him, bang, gone forever, all for nought, just a void left behind, un-fettered grief for his family and friends, the weight of ramifications yet to come for the driver, and here, in our house, our little outpost on the heights overlooking Lough Inch and Galway bay, a lost innocence tonight and maybe forever.

From the RTE News website. 'Two people who were questioned after a 19-year-old man was killed in a crash in Co Galway have been released. A file has been prepared for the Director of Public Prosecutions. The young man was struck by a vehicle on the Moycullen to Barna Road, near the junction of Paddy's Cross. He was pronounced dead shortly before 4.20am. The road was closed for a time closed for a forensic investigation. Gardaí in Salthill have appealed for anyone with information relating to the incident to contact Salthill Garda Station on 091 514720 or the Garda Confidential Line on 1800 666 111.'

Air dheis De go raibh a h-Anam Dilis!