Fireworks victim is still without sight in one eye

Lauren McKeown was dressed up as a policewoman with a group of schoolgirls, all in fancy dress on Millar’s Lane, Rahoon at around 6.30pm. She was to have a sleepover with a friend from Salerno Secondary School that night in Salthill.

Her dad Patrick McKeown said that in a bizarre twist of fate, she was telling her friends about a student who had lost her left eye after a firework exploded in her face in Eyre Square while waiting for a bus in 2021.

“They were just having this conversation at 7.45pm when they heard the scream of a rocket behind them on the lane. She turned around and it struck her in the eye.”

A passerby came to her aid and called for an ambulance and rang Patrick and his wife Sinéad who were in Recess at the time.

Lauren, 14, was taken to University Hospital Galway for treatment but has now been discharged with medication.

“They showed her a card a foot away and she couldn’t see it four days after the incident. She was very upset, we were shocked ourselves, but the doctors are hopeful she will get the sight back.

“We don’t know how much, they’re hopeful all of it, but the impact was so great that there is still a lot of bleeding and inflammation at the back of they eye that they can’t get into. It just has to be given time to heal – they’re saying that could take six weeks.

“She’s putting in drops every two hours and she’s sleeping upright to try to bring down the inflammation.”

Gardaí took statements from all the girls and have appealed for anyone with information to come forward. But Patrick says so far nobody has owned up to the horrific incident.

“There was a lot of screaming, a lot of blood pumping out. There’s no way whoever let that rocket off didn’t know what they did,” he insisted.

“Why has nobody come forward – there were at least 100 kids there at the time. It’s happened before and it’s going to happen again. How many times does it have to happen before people realise fireworks aren’t fun. This was used as a weapon. It’s my hunch this was sinister and aimed at this group of friends in the lane – they heard the rocket go off very close to them.”

Pictured: Victim: Lauren McKeown in a still from a video she shot with her father Patrick on the Buteyko breathing technique.