Ruth’s final moments still a mystery
‘WE don’t know what happened,’ Coroner Ronan Maugire BL stated as he returned an open verdict into the death of Ruth Maguire, the 30 year old mother of three from Newcastle, Co Down, who drowned after a night out in Carlingford as part of a hen party earlier this year.
Ruth, who was engaged to be married, was one of a party of 30 women who had got a bus from Belfast to Carlingford on Saturday March 16 last. They had arrived in Carlingford around 5pm and checked into their accommodation in Jordan’s B&B. They then had something to eat in the Foodhouse and some of the group went to Ma Bakers and some went to Taaffe’s Bar. The group who had gone to Ma Bakers then went to Taaffe’s Bar to the upstairs disco bar.
Security man Des McElroy told how, following an altercation, the group were asked to leave the disco bar.
He recalled how Ms Maguire had asked if she could go out another door from two other women from the hen party. He took her out a side door and walked her out into the alleyway. She kept talking about going to Newcastle and he told her that there were no taxis in Carlingford. She had drink taken but was not overly drunk. He was worried about her because she was on her own and as he went back to the bar, he told the other girls from her hen party that she was on her own and talking about going to Newcastle. They said that she was ‘no-effing friend’ of theirs.
He said Ms Maguire had been wearing a black T-shirt and black jeans as had all the members of the hen party.
Speaking from the body of the courtroom where the inquest hearing took place, Ms Maguire’s mother Geraldine Worthington said that Ruth only knew three people in the hen party and the others weren’t friends of hers and that was why she went in a different direction.
She stressed that Ruth wasn’t involved in any altercation and that while there had been an incident which had led to the group being asked to leave, it was between that hen party and another.
She said her daughter wouldn’t be used to being asked to leave a premises and that was why she didn’t leave with the others. The people she was with weren’t her friends. She left because she wanted to go home and was trying to phone her partner.
‘If Ruth had been with her friends, she would still be alive.’
Ruth was last seen walking towards the hairdressers on Newry Street. At three minutes past midnight on March 17, she posted a photo from her Instagram account, which showed the door of a cottage at Liberties, Carlingford, directly across from the harbour.
When her partner Jim Griffin turned on his work phone on April 1, he discovered that there were two missed calls from Ruth which were made at six minutes past midnight on March 17.
She was reported missing the following morning at 9am and extensive searches took place on both sides of Carlingford Lough. Her body was discovered on Blockhouse Island and taken
to the shore at Greenore and she was pronounced dead by Dr John McKeown on Monday March 18.
Pathologist Dr John Ryan who carried out the post-mortem said that while there were a number of abrasions on her face and arms, thee was no evidence of internal injuries and the cause of death was drowning. There was no sign of trauma to the brain or skull.
The inquest also heard that the tide was on the turn and was on the way in at the time she would have fallen in.
As there were no CCTV cameras covering the harbour, it wasn’t known exactly where she went in.
Coroner Ronan Maguire commenting that a huge amount of statements were taken from people who were on the hen party but not one of them were present. They didn’t return phonecalls to the gardai who tried to contact them.
Mr Maguire concluded that it was not known exactly what happened and he returned an open verdict in keeping with the medical evidence that Ruth had drowned.