A C Cork village was coming to terms yesterday with the news that four local people had died in a car accident.
Yesterday was a horrific day for accidents on the roads of Co Cork. As well as the three young women and a two-year-old girl who died in the car crash at Cooleen, near Charleville, a 17-year-old girl, Sally Shannon, of Coolkishla, near Macroom, died when the jeep she was driving went out of control.
Those who died in the Ford Fiesta on the road between Mallow and Charleville were named as sisters Niamh (20) and Anita O'Herlihy (18) and their friend, Carmel Conroy (22), and her daughter, Emma, aged two.
The facts have not been established, but it is believed they were overtaking another car on a mainly straight stretch of road on the outskirts of Charleville at 5.20 p.m. on Wednesday when the accident occurred.
Following a head-on collision, their car went over a crash barrier and fell seven feet down an embankment. It took rescuers more than three hours to recover the bodies.
The woman driver of the oncoming Mitsubishi car, who has not been named, was being treated at Cork University Hospital yesterday and was said to be in a serious condition.
The two sisters and their friend were part of a newly-formed band, Nivita, and were due to play in the Woodlands Hotel at Adare, Co Limerick, last night.
Churchtown, near Mallow, where the young women lived, was in mourning last night and a huge crowd is expected for the funeral at the weekend.
Niamh O'Herlihy had been studying journalism in Dublin but had broken off her studies to pursue her new career in music. She, like her sister, had been part of a folk group in Churchtown.
Anita O'Herlihy had also taken a break from her studies and was working with the Profile Model Agency in Cork. Carmel Conroy had been employed with an Internet consultancy company in Churchtown.
The new band had been making inroads into the music scene because of the special tribute record it had released called Candles, in memory of the victims of the Dunblane massacre in Scotland.
Yesterday the parish priest of Churchtown, Father Patrick Twohig, spoke of the tragedy and said the young women had taken time off work to prove to themselves they had a future in music. "It's a terrible tragedy, the worst I have ever had to deal with," he said.