A two-year-old girl died and two of her brothers were injured after fire engulfed their home in Dundalk yesterday.
The dead girl was Kayleigh Conway. Last night, her brother, Dylan (3), was critical in Temple Street Hospital in Dublin. Her other brother, Jack (eight months), was stable in Our Lady of Lourdes Hospital in Drogheda.
Gardai and Dundalk Fire Service are carrying out separate investigations into the blaze, which started sometime after the children's mother, Ann, came in from work at 8 a.m. yesterday, and her husband Martin had left for work as a van driver for a local butcher. Gardai believe Ann went to bed with infant Jack and the other children slept in another bedroom.
The fire quickly spread from a downstairs room, up the hall and up the stairs.
The alarm was raised just after 10 a.m. Ann ran from the house with baby Jack and then tried to get back up the stairs to her other children but was prevented by the heat. Two units of the local fire brigade were on the scene within minutes and two of the firefighters, using breathing apparatus, went to rescue the trapped children.