Stunned family mourners, who could only look on in horror as the remains of their beloved was careered around a graveyard by stampeding funeral horses, have settled a €38,000 damages claim against the undertaker.
The amount of compensation paid to 11 grieving relatives, who sued undertaker Larry Massey Ltd, Ballyfermot Road, Dublin, or the detailed terms of the settlement, were not disclosed before Judge Alison Lindsay yesterday in the Circuit Civil Court. John Doherty, counsel for the family, told the court the claim had been settled and could be struck out with no further court order.
In their claim the relatives alleged the horses selected to draw the hearse and remains of the late Susan Gibbons, Oranmore Road, Ballyfermot, Dublin, who was buried on the August bank holiday Monday, 2001, were unsuitable and had displayed a nervous manner.
As a result, they bolted as the cortege approached the graveside at Newlands Cross Cemetery, Dublin, and proceeded to career around the cemetery.
They made for the exit which was blocked by the funeral limousines and the terrified animals attempted to jump these vehicles.
The Civil Bill revealed that a wheel had come off the hearse which had been smashed into pieces.
The coffin, which was in the hearse at the time, was also severely damaged.
When the horses were eventually brought under control, the burial went ahead very quickly.
The 11 mourners were deeply shocked and distressed and had suffered trauma as a result of their experience.
They were also very unhappy that their deceased relative was placed in her grave in a broken coffin.
An exhumation had to take place some days later when the deceased was reinterred in a new coffin.
The plaintiffs were Ms Annie Gibbons, mother of the deceased; brothers James, Terence, Anthony, Michael and Paul; sisters Marie, Dolores, Kathleen and Doris, and the deceased's partner John Tuomey.
The funeral was widely covered in the media at the time and family members were quoted as saying the horses had taken off "pell-mell" across the cemetery.
Up to 300 mourners, some of whom had travelled from England and the US for the funeral, had to run out of the way of the stampeding animals and hearse.