A man was drowned last night while trying to assist divers in difficulty off the coast of Clare.
The 38-year-old went to the assistance of three divers who were driven on to rocks in heavy seas near Kilkee shortly after 6 p.m. He was taken from the sea by the local lifeboat, but attempts to revive him failed. One of the divers was rescued while the other two made it back to shore unaided.
Six people died on the roads over the weekend, including two gardaí who were killed when a stolen car collided with their patrol car in south Dublin yesterday morning.
Elsewhere, a 52-year-old man died in a motor racing event in Co Kilkenny yesterday afternoon. The accident happened at Inistioge where the victim, a competitor in the staged hill-climb race, lost control of his vehicle, which struck a wall.
Another man, aged 34, died when the car in which he was travelling overturned in west Dublin early yesterday. He was named as Mr Kenneth Grant, of Homelawn Gardens, Tallaght. The accident happened at about 12.45 a.m. on the Greenhills Road in Walkinstown.
On Saturday night a three-year-old boy, Brian O'Hara, from Ballycallan, Co Kilkenny, died in St Luke's Hospital of injuries he sustained when struck by a car on Friday evening.
The boy is reported to have run from a garden at Leggetsrath West on to the main Carlow road in Kilkenny at about 7 p.m. on Friday. He was in intensive care until he died at 9.20 p.m. on Saturday.
In Co Antrim a 22-year-old woman died yesterday morning after the car in which she was a rear-seat passenger spun out of control.