A 21-year-old woman has appeared in court charged with dangerous driving causing the death of a mother and daughter who were killed three days before Christmas,
.Geraldine Clancy, 58, and her daughter Louise, 22, from the townland of Leitrim, near Kilworth, Fermoy, Co Cork drowned when their car crashed and overturned into a flooded field shortly after 11am on December 22 last on the Ballyduff to Fermoy road, just a kilometre or so from their home.
Susan Gleeson today came before Fermoy District Court, where Judge Brian Sheridan heard that Sergeant John McNamara has served the book of evidence on Ms Gleeson, with an address also at Leitrim, Kilworth, Co Cork.
Ms Gleeson, who did not speak in court, was remanded on her own bond of €500 to face the single charge at a hearing of Cork Circuit Criminal Court on October 25 next.
John Brooks, solicitor for Ms Gleeson, applied for legal aid for a junior and senior counsel and for the services of an engineer.
Members of the Clancy family were present in court.
Last April an inquest into the women’s deaths heard that they both died from acute cardiorespiratory failure due to drowning.
It was adjourned pending criminal proceedings, and only heard evidence of identity and cause of death.
Geraldine and Louise Clancy had been on their way to Fermoy to carry out some last-minute Christmas shopping when the car in which they were driving was in collision with another vehicle, went through a gap in a stone wall, and overturned in a flooded field adjacent to the Blackwater river.
Both women were trapped in the vehicle.
Louise Clancy had just returned home for Christmas after a semester abroad as part of an Erasmus Exchange Programme from UCC.
Mrs Clancy’s husband Noel was one of the first to arrive on the scene on his tractor, unaware that his wife and daughter had been involved in the incident.
Despite the efforts of paramedics and emergency services, both women were pronounced dead at the scene.