‘There’ll be a lot of homes a lot quieter now with those lovely girls gone’

AT the church in the centre of Navan town, the young visitors had to wait their turn for a flame to die before they could find a space to stand their lighted candles.

Those who couldn’t wait, decorated the metal frames of the candle stands with their contributions until the two side walls of St Mary’s glowed with flickering light. The morning Mass and the lighting of tealights brought some solidarity and purpose to a town of disorientated teenagers who gathered in small groups in schoolyards and street corners, not quite sure how to act or what to think. Tragedy isn’t on the school curriculum and there are no text books to prepare for the devastation.

Parents looked, too, for guidance but left without answers, did their best to bring comfort and calm to an impossible situation. Somewhat fearfully, they drove their own teenagers to the scene of Monday’s bus crash to allow them lay flowers and tributes on the grass verge where a day before satchels lay strewn and abandoned by dazed and wounded friends.

Another spontaneous shrine had built up outside the main entrance to St Michael’s Loreto secondary school, which was mourning the loss of four of its students. A simple wooden cross was placed beneath a row of candles and a banner from happier days that celebrated the school’s 100 years in Navan.

The school crest, like the Tricolour and the star-circled flag of the European Union, hung at half-mast. Its motto, Cruci Dum Spiro Fido - While I Live I Believe In The Cross - never seemed so apt. School friends, parents and other callers to the school added their own thoughts on cards tied or taped to bouquets of bright blooms.

“Dear Clare, we’ll always be thinking of you. You lit up the social area. Never forget your smile,” said one message to 18-year-old Clare McCluskey.

Another revealed that 17-year-old Deirdre Scanlon, a Leaving Cert classmate of Clare’s, was warmly nicknamed Scanna. Scanna would be forever in her friends’ hearts, the neatly written note said. “Thinking of you always.” “God will look after you all,” someone else had penned.

“God has five more angels in Heaven,” said another. All morning the students, their parents and their young friends, boys and girls, came to lay flowers, cry and seek comfort in each other’s presence. Mothers from the Parents Association made teas and sandwiches while teachers walked the corridors and grounds, meeting arrivals, offering their support and shedding their own tears.

The classrooms were a sanctuary for the students and though no classes were held, they gathered instinctively in the places they knew they would find friends, many preferring the familiarity of their uniform although no dress regulation applied.

“The girls are a great support for each other,” said school trustee Sister Mary O’Connor. “We have counselling for them but right now a lot of them just want to talk to each other.”

At Beaufort College on the far side of the town, the classmates and friends of Sinéad Ledwidge were also drawing solace from each other. Sinéad’s smiling picture was taped to the glass panes of the entrance door and a memorial to her was set up in the school lobby, graced by a recent photograph of her with one of her many sporting awards.

Like St Michael’s, Beaufort was a school without laughter which, to those who know the energy that drives daily life in the classrooms, was like a day without light.

“It’s eerie,” said one local woman, the quiet of hushed voices a strange sensation in a place normally vibrant with high spirits and chatter. The next few days will bring more sad silences to the schools of Navan as the young people gather for the funerals of their friends.

Again, there is no curriculum that covers such an eventuality and no textbooks to turn to for tips. “It’s going to be very hard,” said the local woman grimly. “There’ll be a lot of homes a lot quieter now with those lovely girls gone.”