This article is from page 1 of the 2006-12-05 edition of The Clare People. OCR mistakes are to be expected so download the original SWF or the rendered page 1 JPG
A CHRISTMAS party turned to tragedy when a mother of two boys died from hypothermia, after she tragically fell and lost consciousness on her way home from a night out in Ennis.
Maria Talbot (42) was returning from her Christmas night out with her colleagues when she lost her footing, a mile from her home at Claremount, Clarecastle, in the early hours of Sunday morning.
She had socialised with her colleagues from Liam Cleary’s garage on Saturday evening. The group of 14 enjoyed a meal at Season’s 52 restaurant, over Charlie Stewart’s pub on Parnell Street. This was followed by drinks in the pub.
Maria, who had looked forward to the night out for several weeks, went to the Queen’s nightclub with some of the group to continue with the Christmas celebrations.
She was seen on CCTV footage, leaving the premises at 1.40am. She made her way up to O’Connell Square in Ennis where she got a taxi, along with two other women.
She was later dropped off and was found by a passer-by, unconscious, on open ground outside a truck testing centre at Lissane, a mile from her home, after 11.30am on Sunday, amid treacherous weather conditions.
She was taken to Ennis General Hospital where she died from hypothermia shortly after 5pm.
Gardaí initially treated the death as suspicious, but ruled out foul play, after Deputy State Pathologist, Dr Michael Curtis, carried out a post mortem examination at Limerick Regional Hospital yesterday.
Maria’s American-born partner Stephen, who works in Shannon, was in the States on a training course and her distraught sons Ryan (18) and Nathan (14) were being comforted by relatives and friends yesterday.
She was separated and her Portlaoise-based husband travelled to Ennis. He and Ryan formally identified her body.
Maria, who is from Dublin, moved to Clare five years ago. She recently celebrated her 42nd birthday and enjoyed her son Ryan’s 18th birthday just last week.
Maria worked at Cleary’s garage for the past six months.