THE first few weeks of 2016 have brought more tragedy for the families of Irish people living in Australia, the fifth death in the space of three months.
Co Armagh man Niall Quinn (27), a former player with Silverbridge GAA club, became the latest Irish person to die in tragic circumstances at the weekend.
Mr Quinn, a builder who had been working in Melbourne for a year, died after falling from a houseboat into the Murray River on the border of New South Wales and Victoria early on Saturday morning.
In November 2015, four young Irish people were killed in Australia.
Friends Joe McDermott, from Omagh, and Gerry Bradley, from Portstewart, were killed when they were crushed by a concrete slab that fell from a height at the construction site where they worked in Perth.
Mr McDermott (24) had moved to Australia only weeks before to begin a new life and was described as a "cheeky chappy with a zest for life", while Mr Bradley (27) had been in the country for nearly two years.
Their deaths came just days after Craigavon man Alan Haughey (28) was killed in a car crash near Perth, weeks after he had got residency status.
Co Meath man Jamie Peppard (23) also died in hospital in November after he fell from scaffolding.
With a strong economy largely untouched by the global downturn, Australia has proved a popular draw for Irish people in recent years.
Figures from the last Australian census show a huge rise in Irish immigration in the last decade, with the Irish-born population increasing by a third from 2006 to 2011.
