Jury seeks review of dangerous Cork sites after death of student (18) in fall

A JURY has recommended that Cork City Council carry out a review of all split-level sites in hilly parts of the city that pose a risk to the public following the death of an 18-year-old university student who was was found dead at the bottom of a 10m drop.

His body had been found after a massive public response in Cork, with hundreds of people taking part in daily searches.

Cork city coroner Dr Myra Cullinane said it was not the first such inquest she had had to deal with in Cork where somebody fell over a wall with a significant drop on the other side. The family welcomed the jury’s recommendations about split-level sites, which are a feature of parts of the city.

The jury returned a verdict of accidental death at the inquest into the death of University College Cork student Caolan Mulrooney, who died in the fall off Quaker Road while on his way home to Rochestown in the early hours of December 2nd last.

Jeff Safarhanadi told how he had met Mr Mulrooney in Cubins nightclub at about 12.30am and they had agreed to meet up with friends at Burger King at 2.30am to get a taxi home, but when he failed to show up, they presumed he had gone off with a friend, Eithne McSweeney.

Ms McSweeney said she had met Mr Mulrooney in Cubins about midnight and, while he had been drinking in the hour they spent together, he was drunk but wasn’t staggering about, and they had left the nightclub together at about 1am.

She had left her jacket in the nightclub and went back to retrieve it. She expected to find Mr Mulrooney waiting when she came back out, but there was no sign of him and his phone rang out.

Det Sgt Shane Bergin said Mr Mulrooney’s parents, Eugene and Margaret, contacted gardaí on December 2nd after their son failed to come home, and a search was launched involving more than 400 people.

Gardaí examined 115 CCTV tapes and found 10 sightings of Mr Mulrooney, with the last at Fort Street at 1.19am, as if he was heading towards Rochestown, said Det Sgt Bergin.

Motorcycle shop owner John Meehan told how he was getting some perspex from a store area at the back of his premises on Blue Angel Lane, off Douglas Street, on December 6th when he spotted a body in a narrow passageway at the back of his yard.

Det Sgt Bergin said it appeared Mr Mulrooney had gone down East View Terrace, a cul-de sac off Quaker’s Road, and climbed over a wall just 1.5m high but with a drop on the other side of some 10m, and fallen into Mr Meehan’s yard.

Pathologist Dr Margaret Bolster said Mr Mulrooney suffered catastrophic brain injuries in the fall and his death was due to brain contusion, swelling, laceration and meningeal haemorrhage. She said Mr Mulrooney would have been rendered unconscious immediately and died soon after.