Monaghan crash victims named as Kiea McCann (17) and Dalava Mohammed (16)

James Cox

The two girls who were killed in a crash in Co Monaghan have been named locally as 17-year-old Kiea McCann and 16-year-old Dalava Mohammed, who were travelling to their Debs ball when the accident occurred.

The teenagers were killed, and three other people were seriously injured in a single-vehicle crash at Legnakelly near Clones on Monday evening.

It is understood all five people were travelling in the same vehicle.

Two others involved in the accident - a man in his 60s and an 18-year-old girl - are both in a critical condition.

A teenage boy meanwhile, who was a passenger in the car, was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

David Maxwell, a member of the Board of Management of Largy College where the girls were in school, has told of how cars bringing teenagers to the Debs were travelling in convoy and that friends and neighbours were first on the scene of the accident.

Families often travel to the Debs venue to take photographs, he explained to RTÉ radio’s News at One.

“We hear about these stories about first responders landing out to an accident, and it is a family member involved in the accident. But when ordinary people are traveling in a convoy along the road and an accident happens, and you’re the first there, it must be unbearable.”

Mr Maxwell said that the priority of the school today was looking after the wellbeing of their students and family members.

“It has been a tremendous shock in Clones and in the wider county of Monaghan, and we have to help give any support we can to our student families and school body.”

The students had spent the last week and days excitedly preparing for their big day and for it all to end in such a tragedy was very painful. “Words cannot express how everybody feels.” - Additional reporting from Vivienne Clarke