The night five close friends died

Charlene O'Connor was one of five young people killed in a car crash near Buncrana in the early hours of Saturday 8 October. Her mother, Rosaleen,talks about the night Charlene died and how the family has coped since.

'At about seven minutes past five in the morning, there was a knock. I ran out to the front door, and there were two police men standing in uniform. I left the front door roaring crying. Nobody had to say anything. I knew that she was dead. I knew that they weren't standing in my doorway at five in the morning to tell me something good. They met my husband and my son William in the hall, and I could hear them saying, 'I'm sorry, I'm sorry'. They didn't have to say anything else. Just their being there told the story. I will never forget opening the door that night."

In the early hours of Saturday 8 October 2005, five young people from the Buncrana area of Co Donegal were killed in a two-car collision. Charlene O'Connor, Gavin Duffy, Rochelle Peoples, David Steele and Darren Quinn, aged between 21 and 24 years old, died in the accident which occurred at Quigley's Point while they were returning home from a nightclub in nearby Redcastle.

Two months after the accident, Rosaleen O'Connor, mother of Charlene O'Connor has spoken of how she and her family are dealing with the loss of her eldest daughter.

"Charlene was a very independent, very happy girl, with great interest in college – she wanted to be a national school teacher. Before the accident Charlene was working as a substitute teacher and was over the moon with herself – everything was going so well."

Charlene was the eldest of six children, and very close to her younger brothers and sisters. In the months following her death, Charlene's siblings have found it very difficult to cope with the loss of their big sister. "The others have handled her death badly – it's desperate really. The youngest girl, Nicole used to share a bedroom with Charlene and now she doesn't want to go into her bedroom – she doesn't even want to be near her bedroom. She is just afraid all of the time."

The day of the accident Charlene was in her room getting ready to go out with her boyfriend, Gavin. Her mother's voice faltered as she described her daughter "parading through the kitchen", asking how she looked. "Charlene was always the one to have new styles first. She came down from her room with her new boots on, a new bag and jeans and was asking me if she looked alright – you know the way girls go on – and I said 'Aye, you look lovely'. She was the kind of person that you really had to pay attention to – you couldn't just say, 'aye that's alright', and not really look at her, because she knew.

"She asked me to drive her into town. We chatted the whole way in about her graduation that Friday, what we were going to do, how we were going to organise it. When I dropped her off, she gave me a hug and got out of the van. She turned to me and said 'this coat doesn't match what I have on'. She put her two hands into the denim jacket, pulled it over her head and said 'but it will do me for an umbrella' because it was raining. So away she went anyway, and that was the last time I saw Charlene until I saw her in the morgue on the Saturday evening."

Rosaleen O'Connor's words were slow and measured as she remembered the long journey out to the crash sight in the early hours of Saturday morning. "I kept thinking that there is many an accident that you can walk away from with only a broken leg, a broken arm or stitches, you know? I kept asking them 'are you sure it is her? How do you know that it is Charlene O'Connor?' I tried to convince myself that anyone can be wrong, anyone can make a mistake. I thought that if I got out there to her that it would be alright, but when we got there, my husband went into the ambulance and they were right. It was our Charlene."

When the gardaí told me that there were four more were dead, I felt sick. I couldn't believe it. Five close friends died that night, Charlene and her boyfriend Gavin, their friend Rachael and her boyfriend David, and David's first cousin and next door neighbour, Darren. The entire community was just devastated by the accident because the young ones were so well known in town – everyone was in shock. The sadness is still very much alive.

While her pain is almost tangible, Rosaleen O'Connor displays remarkable strength as she speaks of the weeks that followed. "I really believe that it is Charlene that is giving me the strength to keep going. I pray away to her, and ask her to help us, but it is still a struggle. I have five other children and I just have to get out of the bed in the morning to look after them. The rest of them can get up and go to school on their own, but my youngest, Nicole, is only 12 and I have to get up for her.

"When I wake up in the morning I think, 'how am I going to get through this day?' And then when I do get up, there are photographs and memories of Charlene everywhere. To lose a child is to lose a part of yourself, that is just one thing I would say. And to hear the news of her death in the way that we did, is just like part of you dying as well. It takes your last breath.

"We do have a heartbroken house here, and I don't know what is ever going to mend it. Christmas is coming soon and Charlene's birthday is in February. Then there will be Nicole's confirmation in March – six months to the day that Charlene was killed. It's just going to be a long struggle from here on in. We do not have a family of eight anymore. Instead of having our Charlene, we have a grave."