Mourners were asked to remember the other families affected by a horrific road crash which claimed the lives of three young people, at the funeral Mass for one of the victims in Co Cork yesterday.
There were poignant scenes at the Requiem Mass for Paul Geary (21), from Marshallstown near Mitchelstown, as relatives and friends tried to comfort his grieving parents, John and Lil, and his sister, Colette (24).
Mr Geary was killed instantly with his friends Tom (22) and Mary (19) Frewen, Curraghalla, Kilworth - who were sister and brother - when his car collided with a truck at Clonad on the main Portlaoise-Abbeyleix Road in Co Laois last Monday.
They and their friend, Paddy Breathnach, Lismore, Co Waterford, had been returning to Mitchelstown after attending the Oxegen music festival in Punchestown. Mr Breathnach was said yesterday to be in a stable condition.
Hundreds of mourners attended Mr Geary's funeral yesterday at the church of Mary Conceived Without Sin in Mitchelstown. Fr Michael Fitzgerald requested mourners to remember the Frewen family and Mr Breathnach and the truck driver involved in the collision, as well as the Geary family.
"Dear friends, we keep in our thoughts throughout this Mass, the Frewen family and Paddy Breathnach and pray that he makes a good recovery," Fr Fitzgerald said. The Mass was concelebrated with Canon Jim O'Leary and Fr Anthony Wickham.
Fr Fitzgerald said the thoughts of the Geary family were with the Frewens in their loss of Tom and Mary, and they prayed also for Paddy Breathnach on what was "a very difficult day for him".
He continued: "Paul would be pleased and grateful that we do this because he dearly loved his parents and sister and he would know that his tragic and untimely passing would cause them enormous pain."
Mr Geary, a graduate in forestry studies from Waterford Institute of Technology, was "a good son, a good brother and a caring neighbour", said Fr Fitzgerald.
He recalled his love of music and how he had been looking forward to attending the Oxegen concert. "He loved music and, with his friends, was looking forward to the various bands and the craic. They had a great weekend until the tragic moment when the accident occurred."
One of the bands to play in Oxegen, veteran rockers The Who, sent a message of sympathy to the Geary and Frewen families through their Irish friend, Jack Lyons, who travelled to both funerals from Cork city yesterday.
Mr Geary was buried in Marshallstown Cemetery, while Tom and Mary Frewen were interred at Brigown Cemetery near Mitchelstown yesterday afternoon, following Requiem Mass at their local church in Curraghalla, Kilworth.
John and Lena Frewen and their surviving children, Bríd and John jnr, requested privacy at the funeral. The funeral Mass and burial were attended by several hundred mourners.
