Friends laid to rest

IN one church a yellow, toy digger was placed before the altar, symbolising the life of a young man tragically taken before his time.

Just six miles away, another congregation heard a touching story of another young man’s love of cars.

Both Christy O’Connor, 25, of Listowel, Co Kerry, and James Culhane, 30, of nearby Moyvane, loved all things mechanical and had earned their livelihoods working machines.

Both men, along with Pat Galvin, 34, of Moyvane, were killed when their car crashed into a wall outside Listowel last Monday.

More than 1,000 mourners yesterday attended the funerals of Christy and James.

Pat will be buried in Moyvane today.

A fourth passenger in the car, Nicholas Mulvihill, 34, of Moyvane, is making good progress in Cork University Hospital.

Homilist Fr Pat Crean-Lynch, also chief celebrant with five other priests of a funeral mass for Christy O’Connor, in St Mary’s Church, Listowel, recalled how the terrible accident had shook not just the local community, but the entire country.

It was particularly difficult for Christy’s parents, Jimmy and Margaret, who were burying their youngest child, whom he described as their baby.

He also asked for prayers for his brothers and sisters, John, Jimmy, Patrick, Noreen, Jane and Margo, and his girlfriend, Kathy Brosnan.

Fr Crean-Lynch described the family’s grief as “immeasurable”, but they were uplifted by the amount of support they were receiving from so many good people.

“It has been very noticeable to me in the last few days that you (O’Connor family) are grieving with hope. That hope is based on your faith and on Jesus Christ. I’m also asking you to pray to Our Lady who will wrap her mantle around you,” he said.

Among the gifts handed up at the Offertory were a toy digger (Christy worked as a digger operator) and a framed photograph of him smiling, dressed in a tuxedo.

At the funeral mass for James Culhane, in the Church of the Assumption, Moyvane, parish priest Fr Michael Fleming extended sympathy to James’s parents, Moss and Mary, and sisters, Sabrina, Caroline and Elizabeth. He compared the reaction to the crash to an electricity black-out, which left people trying to cope, searching for the light in darkness.

“In this case, the only light that can help us is the light of Christ.”

He said James had left many happy memories behind. He would be remembered as a friendly, popular man and a good conscientious worker who had been hoping to take up a new job.

“James was very good with machinery. He loved cars and car magazines. He was big into cars. He was one who loved life and fun and a word that kept coming up about him in recent days was ‘friends’ and the amount of friends he had,” Fr Fleming added. James was laid to rest in Aghavoher graveyard, Moyvane, and Christy in Listowel’s old cemetery.