A 21-month-old boy was killed immediately when he was struck by a vehicle after straying from the garden of a holiday home in Co Roscommon, an inquest has heard.
Brandon Thomas Byrne, of Inglewood Road, Clonsilla, Dublin, died on August 19th, 2022.
The coroner for Roscommon, Brian O’Connor, recorded a verdict of accidental death on Wednesday. He said Brandon’s death was the result of a tragic accident.
The fatal impact, which occurred on a laneway in the townland of Ballyglass, Ballinagare, involved a four-by-four vehicle driven by Noel Feely, from Creeve, Elphin.
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Mr Feely was reversing down the laneway delivering feed to cattle when the morning incident occurred.
In a deposition to gardaí, read by Sergeant Shane Kelliher, the infant’s mother, Louise Kehir, described how Brandon started playing with the keys from the kitchen door after breakfast on August 19th. They pottered about on the front drive where Brandon presented her with a tree leaf.
Ms Kehir said she was dusting ashes off the stove when she saw a man outside and asked what he wanted.
“He then asked me if I had a little boy with yellow wellingtons … that there had been accident. I asked him if he was joking.”
Ms Kehir said she shouted at the driver.
In her deposition, Ms Kehir asked: “How could he not have seen a boy in bright clothes with yellow wellingtons?”
In his deposition to gardaí, which was read to the inquest, the boy’s father, Andrew Byrne, said he was in bed when he heard screaming and found his son’s body on the road.
Mr Byrne said the driver had “said to me ‘I have to live with this for the rest of my life’. I replied, ‘We have to live with this for the rest of our lives’.”
Mr Feely did not attend the hearing. He sent a medical certificate as evidence he was medically unfit to attend.
In a deposition to gardaí read into evidence, Mr Feely said there was no place to turn on the laneway, so he reversed after checking his mirror. His speed was minimal and his reversing lights were on, he said.
Mr Feely said he did not realise at first he had hit somebody. He heard “a little bump” and thought something had fallen off a tree onto his vehicle.
He said he was “deeply sorry for the loss of life of a beautiful young child on the laneway that day”.
Donal Keigher, for the boy’s family, said Mr Feely’s claim that there was no place to turn in the laneway was strongly disputed and at odds with his clients’ evidence.
The coroner recorded a verdict of accidental death and conveyed his sympathy to the family.
* This article was amended at 8.45pm
