A teenage spectator has died in an accident on the Donegal Worldwide Rally on Saturday and the rest of the occasion has been cancelled.
A joint assertion from governing physique Motorsport Eire and rally organisers Donegal Motor Membership confirmed a “younger male spectator has handed away” following an accident on the twelfth stage.
The accident occurred within the first move of the Gartan stage of the rally on Saturday afternoon, which was the twelfth of 20 within the three-day occasion – one of many largest motorsport occasions on the island of Eire.
Two spectators stay in Letterkenny College Hospital with non-life threatening accidents.
The rally was stopped after the accident and a call to cancel the remainder of the rally was taken as a mark of respect by organisers.
Motorsport Eire and Donegal Motor Membership mentioned they “categorical their deepest sympathies to the household of the deceased” and requested that their privateness is revered.
Motorsport Eire and the An Garda Siochana [Irish police] have began an investigation into the circumstances of the accident.
A Gardaí assertion mentioned it was “investigating the sudden demise of a male youth following an incident at a motorsport occasion in Donegal on Saturday, twentieth June 2026.
“Shortly earlier than 5pm, Emergency Providers and Gardaí have been alerted after a variety of spectators have been injured in an incident involving a collaborating automobile at Trentagh, close to Kilmacrennan.
“One of many spectators, a male youth in his mid-teens, was introduced by ambulance from the scene to Letterkenny College Hospital, the place he was later pronounced deceased.”
The assertion added that the scene of the accident has been preserved for technical examination.
It’s the first fatality on the Donegal Worldwide Rally since three-time winner Manus Kelly died in a crash in 2019.
In 2008, an 18-year-old spectator died when a automobile left the street and the remainder of the rally was cancelled, and 6 years earlier two marshals died in an accident on the occasion.
The final spectator fatality at a Motorsport Eire-sanctioned occasion was on the Cavan Phases in 2012, when two spectators died in an accident.
Kris Meeke, a five-time winner within the World Rally Championship, was main the rally forward of Callum Devine and Josh McErlean earlier than it was stopped.
