Call for barrier at waterway where teen drowned
A Galway Coroner has called for a barrier to be erected on the edge of a city waterway following the accidental drowning of a young man.
The Inquest into the death of Seán Igoe (19) of Laragh, Castleblakeney, Co Galway, heard the first year NUI Galway student had been found in the Distillery River (an offshoot of the River Corrib close to the Salmon Weir Bridge) a few days after he went missing during a night out with friends in June.
Mr Igoe had come into town with a group of friends on June 19 but at some stage of the night had separated from them. The alarm was raised at 4am and his friends started searching for him.
His mother, Catherine, told the Inquest that her son had been a very reliable young man and that she had gotten worried when he hadn’t come home, hadn’t turned up to help a neighbour on the bog and hadn’t sent a text saying he wouldn’t be home.
The following day a search was launched and John Staunton, a member of the college’s kayaking club, told the Inquest that they had come across the body lying up to three feet down in the water at the former Persse’s Distillery, which was partly concealed by overgrown shrubbery.
Dr Birgit Tietz, pathologist, said that the young man, who had severe alcohol intoxication, had died from axphysia due to drowning.
The Coroner, Mr Ciarán McLoughlin Jr, said the death of the young, popular man had been senseless and tragic and suggested that the authorities would erect barriers at the water’s edge to prevent such a tragedy from happening again.