Two young men die in Ireland after taking part in 'neknomination' drinking game craze

Two young men died in Ireland over the weekend, both suspected victims of the 'NekNominate' drinking craze.
Ross Cummins, 22, was found unconscious in a house in Dublin in the early hours of Saturday morning and died later in hospital amid reports he was drinking spirits at the time of his death.
Hours later, the body of Jonny Byrne, 19, was discovered floating in the river at Milford Bridge in County Carlow after apparently jumping in as part of a nomination.

Loved: Ross Cummins with his girlfriend Niamh. He was found unconscious at a house and died later in hospital. Both men are thought to have been playing the NekNominate drinking game

Today Byrne's family pleaded with people not to take part in the drinking game which
encourages participants to film themselves 'necking’ liquor while performing a stunt, before nominating a friend to do the same.
Byrne's father, Joe, today told RTÉ: 'I'm pleading to every youngster to think of the things they're doing.
'It has cost my son his life. The whole family is devastated and our lives will never be the same again.
'I hope this message is heeded because for us, life is virtually over,' Mr Byrne said.
Following Byrne’s death, his brother Patrick tweeted a message calling for an end to the dangerous craze.
'This neck nomination s**t HAS TO STOP RIGHT NOW my young 19 year old brother Jonny Byrne from Carlow died tonight in the middle of his nomination,' he tweeted.
'He thought he had to try and beat the competition and after he necked his pint he jumped into river.
'After five hours he has still not been found.'

He also changed his Facebook profile to a message reading, 'Stop Neknomination Before it’s too Late.'

Ireland's Minister for Children and Youth Affairs Frances Fitzgerald today condemned the craze saying it was evidence of society’s broader need to address the binge drinking culture.

'This is not a game. It is a highly dangerous - potentially lethal - phenomenon, where an inappropriate peer pressure element adds to the risks,' she said.

The Neknominate craze is thought to have originated in Perth, Australia, but thanks to social media it has since gone global.

The hashtag 'neknominate' started trending in the UK in January 2013 and has since been growing in popularity around the world.
The concept of the game has been described by a user on Facebook as: 'Neck your drink. Nominate another. Don't break the chain, don't be a d**k. The social drinking game for social media! #neknominate. Drink Responsible'.
One popular video shows a bare-chested man emptying a bottle of beer down the toilet before two friends lower him head-first into the porcelain bowl to lap it up.

Another video shows a young man get punched, beaten with sticks, have firecrackers thrown at him and his pants set alight, as he guzzles beers and shots.
A third shows a group of apres-ski partygoers downing beers that have first been poured into someone's sweaty ski boot.
But the competitive nature of the game has authorities worried as nominees are encouraged to go further and be more extreme in their videos.
Director of the University of NSW's National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, Professor Michael Farrell, has expressed his concern on the trend saying it could turn deadly.
‘It's like Jackass and that type of wild behaviour, and it's not necessarily very impressive,’ he told the Sydney Morning Herald.
‘The main issue is the question of scale and context. In general it looks like it could get people into a lot of trouble, with a lot of pressure to drink. It's competitive, heavy drinking, and that tends to end up with people coming to serious grief through alcohol poisoning. It isn't a thing to be encouraged at all,’ he said.
Another trend concerning authorities is ‘skidnominate’, a dangerous escalation of the drinking game where participants film themselves doing burnouts and skids in their cars.