People queue up to sign book in solidarity

YOUNG and old queued side by side in solidarity as they waited to add their names to a book of condolences in Dublin’s Mansion House yesterday.

Some left the foyer of the historic house with tears in their eyes.

James Doyle (22), from Tullamore, said that the tragedy hit home for him as he previously lived in Berkeley on a J1.

“I know exactly where it happened and it really could have been any one of us, so it struck a chord with me,” he said.

School teacher Frances Ward said that the six young people who died were of the same generation as many of her students.

“It’s horrendous. I think Enda Kenny summed it up when he said that you could see your own children when you looked at their faces in the paper,” she said.

Elsewhere in the city, there was standing room only at a memorial for Eoghan Culligan at DIT yesterday, where he was remembered as a young man who “always brought sunshine”.

Classmates and lecturers of the 21-year-old, from Rathfarnham, gathered to pay tribute to the student who lost his life in Berkeley this week.

Former DIT student Niccolai Schuster (21) was also remembered at the ceremony.

Director of the School of Business, where Eoghan was due to begin his final year, Paul O’Sullivan, described the six students who died as “the flowers of their generation”.

Eoghan was the “key man” in his college study groups, Mr O’Sullivan told mourners.

“Even as a secondary school student, Eoghan was already volunteering in a nursing home,” he added.

Friends of the Ballyboden St Enda’s GAA star broke down in tears as tributes to him poured in from his lecturers.

“He was big physically and his impact on you was also big,” lecturer Margaret Farrelly said.

Another special service will take place in UCD today.