'She was a lovely lady' - Nephew of nun killed by JCB was one of first on scene

An 85-year-old Limerick-based nun died from injuries after her car crossed the white line and crashed into a farmer’s oncoming JCB tractor on a west Clare road, an inquest has heard. 

At the Clare coroner’s court, an eye-witness, Nuala Hayes told the inquest in a deposition how she was driving behind Sr Cecilia Keating’s grey Kia Picanto car and started beeping the horn and flashing lights “as I knew there was something wrong” when she saw the car on the wrong side of the road.

At around 4pm on March 7, 2023, Ms Hayes was driving towards the seaside resort of Kilkee from her parents’ home in Cross on the Loop Head peninsula.

Ms Hayes said: “I continued beeping and flashing and the car came back onto the left hand side of the road."

Ms Hayes said that after Sr Cecilia’s car went around a bend, the car started to move back onto the wrong hand side of the road.

Ms Hayes said that the car then crossed a white line and the front right side of the car collided with the front right wheel of an oncoming yellow JCB tractor.

Ms Hayes said that the JCB tractor “was either stationary or moving very slowly”.

She said: “It was not coming at any speed towards us and as the car hit the tyre of the tractor it bounced back towards the ditch.” 

Ms Hayes stopped and got out of her own car and said that she saw an unresponsive female in the Picanto car.

Ms Hayes said: “I was talking to the driver and said ‘we are here, don't worry’ but I knew she was gone."

At the time of her death in March 2023, Sr Cecilia was living at Castletroy in Limerick and had served as a nun for 50 years in Australia. 

In his deposition, farmer and contractor, Christopher Keane, aged 50, of Bella, Kilkee told how he could see Sr Cecilia’s car “weaving on the road”. 

The driver of the JCB tractor said: “I slowed my vehicle and started to mount the ditch.” 

Mr Keane said that “I was in the ditch as far as I could go but I knew that the car was going to collide with my vehicle".

Mr Keane said before he saw the grey car approaching, he was moving "at a maximum speed of 15km per hour as I was driving on the road".

Sr Keating’s road death is the second fatal accident Mr Keane has been involved in in west Clare.

In July 2023 at Ennis Circuit Court, Mr Keane was fined €30,000 after he pleaded guilty to two health and safety breaches connected to the death of "very good friend" and full-time farmer, Damien Carmody, aged 36, on January 21, 2021.

Mr Carmody died when a wall collapsed in on him while he was helping out friend and contractor, Mr Keane in excavating out a new slatted tank for the storage of slurry on the farm of John Roche at Doonaha, Kilkee.

At the Sr Keating inquest, nephew, Bernard Keating praised Mr Keane’s "great thinking" in lifting the tractor's shovel by three feet before impact.

Mr Keating stated if Mr Keane hadn’t raised the shovel, his aunt "would have been destroyed”. 

At the scene post accident, Mr Keane passed a roadside breath test administered by gardai. 

Mr Keating was one of the first people on the scene and when he went to see the condition of the person in the car, he saw that it was his aunt, Sr Cecilia and she was unresponsive.

He said that earlier that day “I spoke with Cecilia Keating at my mother’s house in Kilbaha for about 45 minutes at around mid-day”.

At 4.43pm on March 7, 2023, Mr Keating formally identified the body of his aunt to gardai.

Mr Keating said that the family had questions over what happened to Sr Cecilia in the stretch of road before impact.

He said: “Something happened in the last mile…She was very careful, she wasn’t a fast driver. She was 85 but looked only 72 or 73 - she was very fresh for her age mentally and physically.”

He said: “She was a lovely lady.”

Clare County Coroner, Isobel O’Dea stated that there was no evidence that Sr Cecilia suffered a cardiac incident or a stroke prior to impact. She said: "It might have been a lapse of concentration."

Ms O’Dea also stated that the garda collision report detected no speed by Sr Cecilia.

The garda report found that there were also no braking marks before impact.

The report found that the JCB had moved onto the grass and margin and at the point where the vehicles collided, there was enough space for the Picanto to pass if vehicles were passing at low speed.

The collision report found that the JCB had forward movement while the Kia had considerable forward momentum at time of collision.

Ms O’Dea said that the post mortem concluded that Sr Cecilia died from poly trauma as a result of a road traffic accident.