AN old, rusting shopping trolley lying on the canal bank at the Ninth Lock in Clondalkin, Dublin, was the only clue yesterday evening to the tragedy which left one boy dead and another on a life support in hospital.
There was also the fact that no children were swimming in the water, although the sight of canal bank frolics has become an intrinsic part of summer in the capital.
These unofficial swimming pools, often dirty and debris filled, are magnets for children when the temperature climbs. On a fine evening, like yesterday, the lock would have been an improvised holiday camp. Instead, children stood around, bandying the names of friends they had not seen today, wondering if they were the ones that had been taken away in the ambulances.
Thomas Sweeney (14) from Harelawn, who knew the two boys, spoke about the accident as though he had not quite taken in what had happened to his friends.
The boy who died, Jason Ryan (11), couldn't swim, he said. The other boy involved in the tragedy is Keith Mahon (13). But it wasn't unusual for boys who couldn't swim to amuse themselves by jumping across the lock and grabbing on to the wall opposite. Maybe this is what Jason was trying to do, "but he just jumped in and went straight down", he said.
Thomas's father intervened occasionally to cover his son's face from the press cameras, but also cautioned him as he tried to remember the sequence of events to "get your facts right for the newspapers". Thomas continued: "Jason was shouting: I'm drowning, I'm drowning. Then Keith jumped in and grabbed his arm, but Jason just pulled him down."
Keith's younger brother, Patrick, also dived into the water in an attempt to save them. Liam Brady (14), from the nearby Greenfort Estate, was watering his horse, Sylvia, nearby when he heard the commotion. "I heard a young fella shouting: my brother's in the canal, my brother's in the canal."
A woman said it seemed the boys had been under water for about half an hour before the fire brigade and ambulance men were able to get them out. "One lad seemed to have been caught in a shopping trolley, and they had to get the trolley out before they could get him," she said.
One boy was wearing swimming togs, she added, while the other was in a T shirt, jeans and runners. Assuming both boys had drowned, the woman said: "The firemen did everything they could to bring them round, but it didn't do any good."
The owner of a shop from which the alarm was raised, Mr Dominic Dillon, said the tragedy was "an accident waiting to happen". The good weather brought children flocking to the water and it was impossible to keep life buoys there, he said.
Although there was a FAS scheme to clean a stretch of the waterway nearby, the canal was full of debris. "They dump cars and everything in it," he added.
