‘We’ll miss your beauty and lively charm’

A SOLITARY bouquet of flowers lay at the waters edge yesterday as disbelieving neighbours prayed at the spot where the bodies of a mother and her two children were taken from a river in north Cork.

A card on it simply read: ‘We will miss your beauty and lively charm.’

Fr Pat Scanlan, parish priest in the village of Castletownroche, said mass yesterday morning for Ita Noonan, her son, David, and daughter, Emma, whose bodies were discovered last Monday after a tragic triple drowning accident a quarter of a mile form the village.

Afterwards he led a number of parishioners to the bank of the River Awbeg where they said a decade of the rosary.

Fr Scanlan had performed the Last Rites on all three after the emergency services located their bodies on Monday.

“There’s a eerie silence, a sense of disbelief, and a feeling of shock. Only now is it really sinking in,” Fr Scanlan said.

He added that young adults living in the village were particularly shocked because they had been friendly with David (24) and Emma (20), who had previously both attended Nagle Rice Secondary School in Doneraile.

The school’s principal, Willie Hallinan, said that David had been a pupil there from 1995 to 2000, while his younger sister had only left two years ago.

“David was a bubbly young fella. He did very well at his Leaving and got an A1 in technical drawing. Emma did her Leaving Cert in 2004. She was a lovely, quiet and unassuming girl. We will always remember her wonderful smile. The teachers here were very upset when they heard the tragic news,” Mr Hallinan said.

Emma met a member of staff last Saturday in Mallow and told him that she was very excited at the prospect of getting an interview with an accountancy firm in Cork City. She had been studying for a Higher Certificate in Business and Accounting at Cork Institute of Technology.

Ita Noonan, nee Rea, was originally from the village of Ballyhea and married David, who is from Freemount. The couple lived in Doneraile and Freemount, before they separated and Mrs Noonan and the two children went to live in Castletownroche. She buried her mother last year.

At one stage Ita worked as a personal assistant in Golden Vale creamery before taking up a job as a clerical assistant in Fermoy garda station in 1998.

Superintendent Flor Horan said there was a sense of loss and disbelief among her colleagues. “We’re all shocked. Ita was full of life.

She loved coming to work and had lots of friends here. We have to deal with a lot of tragedies, but this one is so much harder, Supt Horan said.

Inspector Pat McCarthy said she would be a tremendous loss. “Ita was a terribly kind person and was always in good form. She had a big heart. She was a free spirit,” Insp McCarthy said.

Shane McShortall, general manager at the Hibernian Hotel in Mallow, where Emma worked part-time said she was extremely popular.

“Last year she started working with us in the coffee dock and the restaurant. She started off quiet, but came on in leaps and bounds. She always had a smiling face,” Mr McShortall said.

He added that when news of the tragedy filtered through “there were tears all over the place.”

Emma left work at 3pm on Sunday, telling colleagues she was going for a swim. She had been due back to work on Monday for the breakfast shift at 7am. “Unfortunately, that didn’t happen. It is terribly sad,” Mr McShortall said.

Superintendent Horan said that the spot where the family drowned was dangerous, even though it looked calm.

“All rivers look nice and inviting at this time of year. However, the locals would know that the river at this point has strong undercurrents. It looks deceptively calm,” Supt Horan said.

In places the river is fast-flowing and there are a number of holes in the area where the three drowned which are more than 10ft deep.

Gardaí said they would now be preparing a file on the case for a coroner’s inquest.