THE FUNERAL Masses of two of the three friends who died in a weekend crash on the way home from the Listowel Races took place in west Limerick yesterday.
Hundreds of mourners were at the Church of the Immaculate Conception in Newcastle West for the funeral Mass of 37-year-old butcher Richard Feury, a married man with one young son.
Prayers were said for the other families bereaved in the incident.
“Richard and the two Tommys were together in life and now they are together in death,” chief celebrant Canon Frank Duhig, parish priest of Newcastle West, said.
The congregation heard how Mr Feury “had the essentials right”. He was a man of faith who had visited Knock on his holidays recently. He was a great family man to his own family and to his wife Trish’s family and was extremely generous. He had achieved excellence in his 20-year career as a butcher, “and you could set your watch by him”.
His recreational activities centred on Munster rugby, Limerick GAA, Liverpool soccer and he also loved horse racing.
His wife Trish had lost “a caring husband” and his young son Josh (3) had lost “an adoring dad”. His father and mother, Margaret and Jack lost a son who loved and cared deeply for them, and who was not afraid to show it, and his two brothers and sister had lost someone they could be proud of, Canon Duhig said. In addition, his employers had lost a loyal friend.
The deaths of a very good young man in his 30s was not supposed to happen – but it recalled the death of another young man in his 30s 2,000 years ago, and death though final, was not the end, the congregation was told.
The priest said Mr Feury had been the housewife’s friend, working at Griffin’s butcher’s in the centre of Newcastle West. One woman told the priest he was the kind of lad you would want your son to grow up like and you would like your daughter to meet.
“The whole town will miss Richie Feury” the canon said.
Symbols brought to the altar at the outset included Richard’s apron and knife, and a Liverpool scarf and racing programme, as well as a Guns N’ Roses CD.
In the afternoon, some 10 miles to the south east in the small neat village of Feenagh, in the heart of Limerick farmland, the funeral mass of Tommy Holmes (32), a single man who had his own painting and decorating business, also concelebrated, took place.
His coffin was draped in the Limerick flag, and the tiny church echoed to the sounds of a single violin, played by Anne Phelan.
Mr Holmes, who had been baptised there and was an altar server as a boy, was what you would call “a grand young man”, parish priest Fr Brendan Murphy recalled. He and his friends were three wholesome young men, the priest said, offering sympathy to his parents Tom and Kathleen and two sisters and brother.
Prayers of the faithful were said for the Feury and Murphy families and for the emergency services.
The funeral of the third victim, Thomas Murphy, takes place today in Carrigkerry, Co Limerick.