*Pictured: Saoirse Lillis McMahon
A SISTER and niece of the late Michael Lorigan have stated that the retired teacher’s life “was ripped from us suddenly, violently, without warning or mercy.”
At Ennis Circuit Court this week, Judge Francis Comerford imposed a five year prison term suspending the final six months on Saoirse Lillis McMahon (33) for the dangerous driving causing death of Michael Lorigan (70) on August 16th 2023 on the N67 at Baunmore, Kilkee in west Clare.
Ms Lillis McMahon had her two young children with her and an open bottle of wine on the passenger seat when she crashed her car into and killed ‘gifted’ teacher and cyclist Michael Lorigan.
Judge Comerford also imposed a seven year driving ban on Ms Lillis McMahon of Moveen East, Kilkee who was driving under the influence of alcohol and had a ‘cocktail’ of drugs in her system, including cocaine.
Imposing sentence, Judge Comerford said that Ms Lillis McMahon was driving the car “when she was completely unfit to drive and posed a real danger to anyone that she came across”.
In court four heart-rendering victim impact statements were delivered by Mr Lorigan’s widow, Dympna and his three sisters, Patricia Neylon, Jean Lorigan and a fourth on behalf of Noreen Browne which was read in court by her daughter, Eimear.
In the victim impact statement, Ms Browne said that “our lives have been devastated by someone else’s decisions. Michael would still be alive if not for someone else’s choices”.
She said that “his death was not peaceful, it was not gentle, it has made us, as a family, question everything, our safety, our purpose, our identity”.
Ms Browne said: “Our goodbyes were stolen, death should have greeted him in a whisper, a gentle breeze, lifting his soul away, instead of the thunderous noise of a tornado, leaving behind a broken body on the ground.
She said: “In turn, leaving behind a broken family, trying to make sense of how one person’s actions can cause such horrific carnage.
Ms Browne said: “Grief is the terrible reminder of the depths of our love and like love, grief is non-negotiable. There is a vastness to this grief that overwhelms our miniscule selves.
She said: “We miss him in ways we cannot explain, not just in the obvious moments but in the quiet spaces no-one notices, in the silence that fills the room when we remember what we will never hear again.
“In memories that make us laugh and then break us because we realise it is all we have left. We miss them in the tiny details, in the things only we would notice, in the conversations that will never now happen, in the life they should be still living.
Ms Browne said: “Since his death, we have been greeted by thousands of “I am sorry for your loss”, but we did not lose him, he wasn’t misplaced like a set of keys that we can go back and find. He was ripped from us suddenly, violently, without warning or mercy.”
Ms Browne said: “We had no warnings, no time to prepare. There was no gentle decline, no slow letting go. Just an ominous phone call, a siren, a scream, a silence so sharp, it cuts you in half. One minute you are making plans, the next you are identifying a body. Our lives are now punctuated by before and after.
“We now, must live permanently in the “after”. People talk about shock like it is temporary, like somehow it is a fleeting moment. But for us it has become our new reality.
She said: “This shock, this pain, this trauma, your body feels it in every single cell, your heart is obliterated by it. You don’t know how you are going to survive the next minute, let alone the next week. You are present in body but not in mind.”
