Gardai investigate child's death in car fire

Gardai in Westport, Co Mayo, are continuing their investigations into the death of a toddler twin in a car fire outside his home in Newport yesterday.

James Nevin, two years and eight months old, died in the blaze shortly before 8 a.m. James is believed to have been playing in the vehicle in the driveway of the family home at Mullaun with his twin brother, Sean, when the fire broke out.

Sean managed to escape, and ran into the house to alert his father. The fire brigade and an ambulance rushed to the scene, but the blaze was too intense to save the child.

James was one of five children, the eldest 10. Their parents, Declan and Joanne, are long-time residents of the area. The family had lived in Newport and had moved into a house just outside the village two months ago.

The boy's body was removed to Mayo General Hospital for a postmortem examination yesterday afternoon.

"A young lively couple," is how Father Eamonn Concannon, parish priest in Newport, described the Nevins yesterday as they were comforted by relatives. Father Concannon baptised the twins, and is a close friend of the family.

The eldest child, Angela, is 10, and the others are Paul (7) and Michaela (5).

Sean, the surviving twin, would have been too young to realise what had happened, Father Concannon said. "But he knows something has occurred, and all the family are in shock."

The gardai investigating the fire said that the vehicle was so badly burned that it made detailed examination very difficult.

"It was an inferno. It obviously happened so quickly that it appears there was nothing anyone could do," Supt Pat Doyle of Westport Garda station said. The car was removed for forensic examination to Westport Garda station, and tests are expected to take several days.

In December 1997 three children died in a fire in a van parked near their home in Finglas, Dublin. Amber Quinn (5), her sister, Megan (4) and Ryan (2) were about to join their father on an afternoon outing to mark Megan's birthday when the fire broke out in the mini-van in which they were sitting.

It was believed by gardai investigating the scene that a car cigarette lighter or box of matches could have started the blaze on that occasion.