Mourning in Ireland after balcony collapse in Berkeley kills Irish students

or hundreds of college students in Ireland, flocking to California for the summer has become a rite of passage.

They arrive in Berkeley each year, not to fill UC lecture halls, but to work on temporary J-1 visas. The federal Work Travel Program, which allows students to live and work in the U.S. for up to four months, has become increasingly popular, according to the U.S. Dept. of State.

At a press conference Tuesday afternoon, officials said five of the six students who died in a balcony collapse just after midnight near UC Berkeley were Irish students in the U.S. on J-1 visas for the summer: Oliva Burke, 21; Eoghan Culligan, 21; Niccolai Schuster, 21; Lorcan Miller, 21; and Eimear Walsh, 21. The sixth victim was identified as Ashley Donohoe, 22, of Rohnert Park in Sonoma County, north of San Francisco.
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