The funeral of the two boys whose bodies were found in the boot of their father’s car after it crashed near Westport, Co Mayo, on Monday will take place tomorrow.
The bodies will repose at their home at Ballinkillen, Co Carlow from noon today and funeral Mass will take place in the local church tomorrow at 1pm, followed by burial in the adjoining cemetery.
The boys’ bodies were returned from Westport to Ballinkillen last night.
Their father, Sanjeev Chada, left the family home with Eoghan (10) and Ruairí (5) on Sunday evening to go bowling in Carlow. They did not return home and a national alert was raised after Mr Chada’s wife Kathleen reported them missing.
Mr Chada survived Monday’s crash and was taken to hospital. He was discharged and taken into Garda custody yesterday.
The boys' bodies were released to the family shortly after 4pm yesterday following postmortems performed in Mayo General Hospital on Tuesday by Deputy State pathologist Dr Khalid Jabbar.
Postmortems
The results of the postmortems have not been released by gardaí “for operational reasons”.
Family members travelled to Mayo yesterday from Co Carlow to await the release of the bodies.
Two of Mrs Chada’s brothers live abroad. Kenneth Murphy was due to arrive home from Abu Dhabi last night while Liam Murphy was expected back from Australia at about the same time.
Eoghan and Ruairí will be buried in the graveyard in the centre of the village, following a funeral Mass in the church in which the younger boy was baptised less than five years ago. His grandmother, Patsy Murphy, is sacristan at the church.
Move to Carlow
Mr and Mrs Chada lived in Dublin when Eoghan was born and moved to Ballinkillen about two years later, where they built a large two-storey house on the edge of the village.
The village, near Bagenalstown, remains in shock following the boys’ deaths. Local councillor Tommy Kinsella, a friend of the Murphy family, said no one had any idea what had led to the tragedy.
There was also puzzlement, he said, about why Sanjeev Chada had driven to Co Mayo as he had no family in that part of the country. “There was no connection there at all. Nobody can understand why Westport.”
Mr Chada (43) had become a familiar member of the community since moving to Ballinkillen with his wife, he said. “Sanjeev is a very quiet man,” he said.
“Kathleen worked, and he looked after the two kids all the time. He worked on something at home himself but you’d always see them together.”
He said the boys were sports-mad and played soccer, Gaelic football and hurling while Sanjeev played over-35 soccer with Nurney Villa outside Bagenalstown.
“He’d be the one bringing them to matches and training.”