Five teenagers killed as car driving wrong way on Irish motorway causes head-on crash

Five teenage boys were killed in the early hours of Sunday when a car travelling the wrong way down the M9 motorway in County Kildare, Ireland, collided head-on with another vehicle. The crash occurred around 3am near junction 3, close to the town of Athy, after emergency services received reports of a car heading south along the motorway's northbound carriageway.

The four occupants of the second car — three women and a boy — sustained serious injuries and were taken to hospital. The driver and front-seat passenger were brought to Tallaght University Hospital in critical condition, while a female rear-seat passenger in her 20s was taken to St Luke's General Hospital in serious condition. The child passenger was transported to Children's Health Ireland at Crumlin in Dublin, also seriously hurt.

Garda Commissioner Justin Kelly described the collision as horrific, saying the victims had been travelling innocently when their car was struck by a vehicle driving the wrong way down the motorway. He noted the incident follows a similar crash just a week earlier on the M50 in Dublin, in which nine people were injured after a car was driven in the wrong direction.

Kelly said that in some cases, such reckless driving is carried out deliberately in order to gain likes on social media, despite the potentially devastating consequences for both other road users and the drivers themselves. He added that the case has been referred to the police ombudsman, Fiosrú, limiting what details he could disclose, but stressed that officers face significant challenges when trying to stop such vehicles while also protecting other road users.

The bodies of the teenagers were taken to Naas General Hospital, where postmortem examinations were scheduled. Gardaí have appealed to any witnesses or those with dashcam footage of the crash to come forward.