Joe Carthy was laid to rest on Friday in Askea, Co Carlow, after the 15-year-old from Athy, Co Kildare, was one of five teenagers killed in the M9 crash on Sunday. The funeral came as four people in the Hyundai remained in serious condition in Dublin hospitals.
He was killed in the early hours of Sunday when the BMW carrying five teenagers was travelling the wrong way on the M9 near Moone, Co Kildare, before a head-on collision with a Hyundai. The four people in the other vehicle were three sisters and a seven-year-old boy, and the injuries left families waiting through the week for word from Tallaght University Hospital and other Dublin hospitals.
Fr Thomas Little in Askea
Fr Thomas Little told mourners the family’s “prayer” was that those injured in the incident “make a full recovery”. He also described Joe as “young and deeply loved” and said the service was held “with heavy hearts and a deep sense of sadness,” while adding that “the journey ahead will not be easy”.
A visible but low-key Garda presence was outside the church before, during and after the service. The funeral for Joe was among the first for the teenagers killed in the collision, and it drew attention to how quickly a night-time drive on the M9 became a fatal wrong-way crash.
Hyundai hospital care in Dublin
Alma Kinsella and Niamh Kinsella were in the front of the Hyundai and remained in a serious condition at Tallaght University Hospital. Ella Hendricken and her seven-year-old nephew also remained in serious condition in Dublin hospitals, keeping the focus on the four people who survived the impact but still faced a difficult recovery.
The crash left two sets of families moving at once: one preparing funerals, the other waiting beside hospital beds. A linked account of the funeral and the injured passengers can also be found in this M9 crash report on Joe Carthy, which tracks the same collision from the other family’s side.
M9 crash on Sunday
The key unresolved question is what caused the BMW to be travelling the wrong way on the M9 near Moone before the head-on collision. The funeral on Friday did not answer that, but it did show how the crash now runs through two places at once: the church in Askea and the hospitals in Dublin.
