With the Christmas season approaching, it is important that people in all sections of society should reflect fully on the hugely tragic inquests which took place in Donegal on Friday.
Coroner Denis McCauley had the grim task of investigating the deaths of seven young people aged between 18 and 24 who were involved in two separate road traffic accidents in the county.
One of the hearings examined the head-on crash which killed Teresa Robinson (20), and two 19 year olds, Stephen McCafferty and Kaylem Murphy, outside Letterkenny in July, 2016.
A fourth young man, Sean Ward, survived a head-on smash between a Toyota Avensis and a Peugeot 306, but a significant illness prevented him from attending the inquest.
While evidence was given that both vehicles had seen earlier that day at a yard in the area, the coroner said he was unable to determine an exact cause for the collision.
However, there was sadly much less doubt about the circumstances leading to the deaths of Mícheál Roarty and John Harley, both aged 24, as well as Shaun Harkin (22) and Daniel Scott (23) near Gort an Choirce in January of last year.
Their Toyota Corolla was said to have become airborne for almost 23m after it struck a verge going downhill towards a bridge at an estimated speed of 120 km/h within an 80 k/h limit and then landed on its roof.
It was established that all the victims, who had been socialising together, were intoxicated, and the driver, Mr Scott, was at more than six times the permitted blood alcohol level and had cocaine in his system.
The coroner said the four close friends had made decisions which had a dreadful outcome and appealed for widespread consideration to be given to the devastation caused by such calamities.
His words will have a special resonance in Donegal, which has suffered an entirely disproportionate number of road traffic deaths in recent decades.
While the pandemic will seriously restrict the normal festive celebrations everywhere in the coming weeks, there will still be many young people travelling home after nights out in a range of districts.
They need to realise that making the wrong choices can have fatal consequences for themselves and leave an appalling legacy of grief for their families and the wider community. A moment of thought can make an enormous difference.
