Distraught pupils come to terms with crash deaths
Flags at Loreto Convent flew at halfmast today as teachers attempted to console devastated pupils streaming into the school.
The school, in Navan, Co Meath, threw open its doors to try to comfort the hundreds of pupils crossing its threshold, some crying, others simply at a loss for words.
Counsellors had come to the school to try to help teachers and students come to terms with the loss of the four pupils who would never be returning.
Sister Mary O’Connor, a member of the Trust Board, said the school was a community and no community would ever close its doors to pupils in their time of need.
Students hugged each other as they slowly walked past the bunches of flowers laid before a wooden cross at the front of the school.
Parents dropped their children off from cars, watching them as they greeted friends and spoke quietly about the devastating accident.
Sister O’Connor said the whole school is obviously very traumatised.
She said: “It is a feeling of shock, devastation. I think there is a quiet atmosphere, it is calm but I think people are very traumatised really.
“I’ve met quite a number of students already. They all want to meet their friends, a school is very much a community.
“Teachers are having to cope with students that they taught yesterday no longer with them today.”
She said two of the girls, Claire McCluskey and Deirdre Scanlon, were due to do their Leaving Certificates (equivalent to A-Levels) in a few weeks, while Lisa Callan and Amy McCabe were studying hard for their Junior Certificates (equivalent to GCSE).
All the school’s pupils and staff were also praying for Sinead Ledwidge who attended nearby Beaufort College, she said.
Sister O’Connor said the girls were all close friends.
She said regular classes would not resume for several days but the teachers would be in the school and the prayer room would be open constantly for those who wished to use it for quiet reflection.
Outside the school, Ciara Swaine, 15, a classmate of Amy’s, said: “I was very upset. She was in my class. She played football, she had a lot of friends and was really outgoing and nice.”
Ciara said she was coming into the school simply to meet her friends to come to terms with the tragedy.
Another girl said this was the worst thing that could happen to the school.
The girl, who did not want to be named, said a sister of Claire McCluskey was also in her class.
She said: “I heard last night that the sister was in intensive care as well, but she is all right today.”
Amy Fitzgerald and Denise Harford, both in sixth year, and Stacy Ayers, a Leaving Certificate student, spoke of their memories of Claire and Deirdre.
Amy Fitzgerald said: “Both Claire and Deirdre would have done really well in the Leaving Certificate.”
Denise added: “I was talking to Claire last Thursday, she was talking about her debs dress at the graduation ceremony last Thursday. She went to the debs last year as well. She was talking about her car as well, she got it for Christmas but wasn’t driving it yet.”
The girl said Claire was not confident enough to drive the car to school.
Stacey said: “Deirdre was really lovely, everybody liked Deidre, she was known as ’Scanno’, she wouldn’t hurt a fly.”
Stacey also said one of her friends, Julieanne, was hurt in the crash.
She said: “She had to get her hair shaved off and got 10 stitches in her head.
“She was badly shaken and cut, she was crying about it.”
In the small community of Yellow Furze, one of the stops the bus was headed for before the crash, children played football noisily in the grounds of the primary school.
Their shrieks could be heard just yards away where the family of Deirdre Scanlon was in mourning.
An uncle of the girl said: “My sister is devastated and they would simply like to be left alone for now, to cope.”
Family and neighbours rallied round as they carried things to and from the nearby grandparents’ house in preparation for the wake.
Friends and relatives poured into Our Lady’s Hospital in Drogheda where 17 pupils were still being cared for, while five were still being treated in Navan.
Outside the accident and emergency department in Drogheda, Catherine Reilly from Duleek said there was an awful sense of morbidity in the area.
“It was uncanny, like everything just stopped, nobody even breathing,” she said.
Ms Reilly said the people of Navan, Kentstown and Duleek were part of a close-knit community and would all try to help each other.
