The Provost of Trinity College Dublin, Dr John Hegarty, said today university staff and students were “stunned” at the news that three of its graduates were on board the ill-fated Air France plane that crashed in the Atlantic Ocean.
Eithne Walls (28) from Ballygowan, Co Down, and her friends Aisling Butler, of Roscrea, Co Tipperary and Jane Deasy of Dublin, also aged in their 20s graduated from TCD in 2007 and registered with the Medical Council as doctors last year.
The three were returning from holiday in Brazil when the airliner disappeared off radar screens in the early hours of yesterday morning.
“The college, and in particular the staff and students of the School of Medicine, extend their deepest sympathies to the Butler, Deasy and Walls families at this most difficult time,” Dr Hegarty said in a statement.
“The loss of such young, vibrant and promising women at the outset of their careers in medicine and in such tragic circumstances has stunned the college from which they so recently graduated. Our thoughts are with the families and their classmates.”