President meets families of Limerick tragedy victims
President Mary McAleese met with the families of two Limerick men who were electrocuted at the wake of a 21-year-old local man during her visit to Limerick today.
Billy Sheehan was killed in a single car collision on the N69 last November and both Thomas Liston, aged 41, and Niall Fitzpatrick, aged 36, were electrocuted while trying to move a floodlight in a field which was being used as a car park by mourners attending the 21-year-old's removal.
Mr Liston's 16-year-old son Robert and his older brother Seamus, aged 49, also suffered burns in the tragic accident which devastated locals in the small Co Limerick community.
At the time of the freak accident, President Mary McAlesse contacted the two families to offer her condolences and today during her visit to Limerick she held a private meeting with the families and also with the family of Billy Sheehan.
After the meeting the President made a public speech in Askeaton Community Centre where she sympathised with the west Limerick community.
"A small community facing one death would have been a desperate thing. But then in the middle of a wake to find that those who go to help with a heart and a half also become victims, must have seemed - especially to some of the children - like a very scary time when the ground just seemed to move under them and they weren't terrible sure when it would all stop," said the President.
"We can't stop tragedy and we can't stop heartache, but what we can do is when there is tragedy and when there is heartache, we can go the journey together," she added.
Thomas Liston, a father of three from Croagh in Co Limerick, and Niall Fitzpatrick from Broadford Co Limerick who was engaged to be married, were electrocuted when the temporary floodlight they were trying to move came in contact with overhead power cables.
The two men had been trying to light the way for the hundreds of mourners who attended the wake of Billy Sheehan who was the son of well-known local businessman Willie Sheehan, proprietor of the Arena supermarkets in Askeaton and Newcastlewest.
Before meeting with the families of those killed in last November's tragedy, President McAlesse officially opened Chestnut Grove Sheltered Housing Project in Rathkeale in Co Limerick.
The President then travelled into Limerick city where she visited Corpus Christi Primary School in Moyross and Moyross Community Enterprise Centre.
President McAleese was also guest of honour at City Hall where she attended the launch of a recently report about Limerick titled "Profile of a Changing City".
