‘No quick solution’ for grieving family

THE lives of a family grieving for a husband and father shot dead in his home last Sunday will be like a complicated jigsaw for a long time to come — they will be very hard to piece together — their local priest yesterday warned.

Curate Joe Tynan, said there would be no quick-fix solution for those looking for answers following the fatal shooting of Christy Lane in his family home last Sunday afternoon.

“For the family, life will be like pieces of a jigsaw they are trying to piece together,” he said at the funeral Mass. “It will be hard sometimes to do. No matter how many times you turn it and turn it, it won’t come together.

“But somehow, when you go away and come back after a while, there is the piece you have been looking for, the answer to it all,” Fr Tynan said.

Locals say it will be months if not years before the close-knit community, rocked by the tragedy recovers.

But even amid their grief yesterday, Christy’s widow, Mary, his sons, Michael, Patrick and David and only daughter, Margaret, drew solace from the large numbers gathered around them for the heart-breaking funeral Mass.

David somehow found the strength to do a reading. And among the items brought to the altar during the offertory procession were Christy’s tunic from the Civil Defence, a jersey from his native Cork and a briquette from the factory where he worked.

Mourners had packed tightly into St James’ Parish Church at Two-Mile-Borris in Co Tipperary for the 11.30am homily, desperately searching for answers. Life in the area had come to a standstill since Sunday and it will be some time before life as normal resumes.

The hearse awaiting Mr Lane’s remains was brimming with floral tributes, wreaths from distraught wife, Mary, family, neighbours and friends.

Mourners lined up outside to pay their final respects.

And among those to line up for a guard of honour as Mr Lane was carried on his final journey were members of the local civil defence, as well as colleagues from the local Bord na Mona briquette factory in Littleton where the deceased had worked as a supervisor.

As Christy Lane’s remains were removed from the Church and along to Littleton where he was buried, past the yellow-painted bungalow which was once such a happy home, the number of mourners continued to swell and the sense of grief, tragedy and utter devastation amid the tiny community was all the more obvious.