Eight men cheat death as car ploughs into pub

EIGHT young men escaped almost certain death in Kilkenny last night.

They were standing outside a city bar close to midnight when an out-of-control speeding car mounted the footpath.

It shot past them with only inches to spare demolishing parts of the timber facades on a Chinese takeaway and a licensed premises.

It is believed that a mark on one of the men's trousers was caused by the car brushing off it.

The impact was so severe that the right front wheel of the Audi A3 car was shorn off.

The incident happened at 20 minutes to midnight at Lower Parliament Street. And Kilkenny Alive was on the scene within minutes.

Seven of the men who had a miraculous escape, were standing outside Cleere's Bar and one of them was out celebrating his birthday. Another was sitting on a bench.

The men described how the black car came speeding from the Irishtown direction. It appeared to lose control on the Watergate bend. They said it struck the kerb on the left and shot across the road "straight at us", mounting the footpath.

"It must have been doing 60 or 70 miles an hour", one of the men told me.

The car missed the man sitting on the bench outside Cleere's by no more than a couple of inches striking the front of the Lotus House. It continued on, shattering the timber facades on the front of Chinese takeawahy and the adjoining Pumphouse Bar.

Bits of the car and the business fronts were scattered in all directions before the vehicle came to a sudden halt embedded in the Pumphouse front, almost blocking the front door.

Remarkably, there were no smokers outside the Pumphouse as there normally would be. Had there been people there, it is almost certain that they would have been killed.

One of the men outside Cleere's ran up to the car when he saw smoke billowing from the engine.

"The driver was lying across the passenger seat", he said. "I asked him if he was okay but he didn't move. I started pulling him out and he was bleeding all over me. I dragged him out and across the street. The driver said 'you'll have to let me go' and then he ran up Parliament Street.

"There's no doubt about it, we could all have been killed", one of the men outside Cleere's told me.

Several of the men were in a state of shock, particularly the man who had been sitting on the bench.

A large number of gardai were quickly on the scene and a man, believed to be aged about 20, was arrested some distance from the scene about 15 minutes after the incident and was taken into custody.