‘Like a rose Tara gave a lot of joy in a short time’

THE only empty seat in the church at the funeral of Irish teenager Tara Whelan, killed in a terrorist bomb attack in Turkey, was her place in the choir stall.

Tara had been holidaying with two friends, twins Lyndsey and Tracey Galgey, in the holiday resort of Kusadasi when the bus she was travelling on exploded.

Yesterday, at St Nicholas Church, Ballyduff, Co Waterford, Lyndsey said of her friend: “Tara was nobody’s enemy, just a friend to everyone.

“I just want to let everyone know she had the holiday of a lifetime.

“Each night she said ‘This is great, I wish I didn’t have to go home’, but she did wish her family and friends could be in Turkey with her,” she said.

“We would go to the local kebab house and people from Holland, Poland, Turkey, Ireland and Denmark would wait for Tara to come and get behind the counter and make them all chip butties. They all loved her too.

“Even people who only knew her from those two weeks in Turkey are here to see her. Tara always wanted to be famous and is probably smiling down now saying, everybody knows me now,” a tearful Lyndsey said.

Among the gifts brought forward was a single red rose which Fr Michael O’Byrne said: “Like Tara, it has a short and beautiful life and gives so much joy in a short time.”

Referring to her interest in theatre he said: “Everyone in the theatre knows when the lights in a play dim, it’s not the end of the play: the stage lights come up again onto the next scene.

“The next scene for Tara is heaven,” Fr O’Byrne said.

Long-time neighbour and friend, Tanza O’Dea, had composed a poem to her departed pal. “You brightened up my day and made me feel so great. Your sparkle and your zest for life made me scream, God, why not wait?”, her heartbroken friend said.

“You’re free from pain and hurt and woe, but why, oh Tara did you have to go?” was her heartfelt message delivered to a silent church.

Prayers were said for Tara, her family and friends, for the victims of the recent bombings in London and also for the bombers in Turkey.

Fr O’Byrne said the family had expressed the wish that Tara’s death would be the turning point which would bring peace to that troubled area of the world.

Life in the tiny village stood still as Tara’s remains filed past her school pals from Our Lady of Mercy Secondary School.

As the coffin was carried shoulder high into the church, it passed her colleagues in the Sweep Bar.

The GAA club was the last to form the guard of honour, before the coffin disappeared inside to the tiny parish church.

It was fitting as Tara made her final journey out of the chapel to the graveyard behind that her friends would sing one of her favourite songs.

There were more tears as verse after verse of Celine Dion’s “That’s the Way it Is” came from the choir in the gallery overhead.

She has now been laid to rest only yards away from one of her closest family friends, 23-year-old Derek Ryan.

He died in a car crash just days before Tara lost her life in Turkey almost a week ago.