‘There’s been too much suffering in Inishowen’ - Priest speaks of devastation after fatal Donegal collision

Fr Con McLaughlin, Parish Priest at the Church of the Sacred Heart in Carndonagh, was speaking on Thursday after visiting Altnagelvin Hospital on Wednesday night.

Fr McLaughlin confirmed the woman and her two children were local to the Carndonagh town area.

It is understood the child who died was a little girl, and that her little sister sustained serious injuries in the collision and has been transferred from Altnagelvin Hospital to Belfast.

The children’s mother meanwhile was described as being in a serious condition.

The front seat passenger in the same car, a man from the Dungiven area, was also seriously injured.

The road traffic collision between the car they were travelling in and a van occurred on the R240 at Carrowmore, Glentogher, Carndonagh on Wednesday evening.

“It’s terrible. Words are not adequate to express how I feel,” Fr. McLaughlin said.

"I wasn’t called to the scene of the accident but as soon as I heard about it I went to Altnagelvin and it was a pretty difficult scene in A&E.

"The scene we met there is something I will not forget. It brings back all the similar scenes from before.

"I was there for about two and half hours. Then they took the wee child to Belfast.”

Fr McLaughlin paid tribute to the medical staff and the emergency services for their professionalism and dedication in the face of such a devastating tragedy.

“To witness these people trying to keep life together as it were, to see them all working there at Altnagelvin, everybody trying to do their best, it really brings it home to you the reality, that there is a whole world there of trying to protect life; preserve life, and how they do it, I just don’t know.”

Fr McLaughlin spoke to parishioners attending Mass in Carndonagh on Thursday morning.

The sense of shock and sorrow in the community was palpable, he said.

"People never think of the real shocking reality of what it is like, except the emergency services, people like ourselves. To see real suffering, it never leaves you.

"I was there at the terrible accidents in Buncrana from around 2004 to 2007. I can conjure that up any time and it never leaves you.

"I would say with a lot of people in Inishowen, there’s been too much suffering and this will bring to the surface a lot of the pain that is under the surface for people who have lost loved ones already.”