Hundreds mourn woman killed in Thai accident

THE popularity of Joan Lucey was summed up yesterday as hundreds of mourners called to the family home to pay their last respects to the Co Cork woman killed in a motorcycle accident in Thailand.

Members of the local camogie club were amongst those who arrived at the Lucey home at Adamstown, Ballinhassig, to offer their sympathy. With them, they brought a blue team shirt, a reminder of all the games Joan had played with the club. The thoughtful memento brought tears to her father’s eyes and a lifetime of memories flooded back. “She was due to start a new job in Neville Jewellers in Blackpool last Thursday,” Mattie Lucey said. “She loved life; she lived life to the full. She was loved by everybody and she had the craic for everybody.”

He spoke as mourners filed into the family home where Joan’s remains were lying in repose. The 27-year-old had been known far and wide. She’d spent a number of years working with Keane’s Jewellers in Oliver Plunkett Street, Cork, and behind the bar in Kirby’s and Coleman’s pubs in Ballinhassig. She’d also worked in the Hawthorn Bar, near The Lough.