‘Why oh why did you take my CJ, my blue-eyed boy, from my side’
Words like ‘feud’ and ‘violence’ have repeatedly peppered those claims.
Yet in St Mary’s on the Hill Church in the northside Cork city suburb yesterday, the person staring out of the memoriam card didn’t seem to fit that image.
Amid grieving relatives and tearful teens, a different picture was painted, one of a 16-year-old boy in a respectable suit, lovingly holding his baby sister, Sylvia – just a normal teenager.
The packed crowd of friends, family, neighbours and mourners paying their final respects to CJ Dolan yesterday were keen to keep that second image to the front of their minds.
Among them was parish priest Fr Pat Fogarty, who told the standing-room only audience the past week had left the densely populated area “numb and distraught” – himself included.
“Last Friday morning will stay with me for a long time. The previous morning I had been talking to CJ’s grandmother, about CJ.
“The next morning I heard the terrible news,” he said, noting the “huge crowd” present was testament to the “high esteem” the young man was held in.
As Fr Fogarty spoke, mourners delicately placed items representing the teenager’s interests on the podium – a horseshoe floral wreath for his love of horses, a picture he painted representing his artistic streak, and a book of remembrance from his local secondary school. Not the image people who did not know CJ may have had.
Tears which had already begun during a heartbreaking version of My Son spread to the teenager’s school friends, many of whom were still in uniform and carrying their bags, as the 16-year-old’s mother Noreen took to the podium.
Helped by three family relatives she choked back tears to read a message written since the tragedy unfolded, called A Little Prayer To You Jesus.
The family are religious, but her own personal torment and anger towards God for taking her son was clearly apparent through the words.
“Why oh why did you take my CJ, my blue-eyed boy, from my side.
“Oh Jesus, this is not right, you took the good and left the bad,” she said, adding pointedly: “Jesus, you know, someone out there should be full of remorse.”
The comment received a lasting round of applause from those who heard the message, but it won’t bring the young teenager back. If anything, the words of the specially chosen R Kelly song, If I Could Turn Back The Hands of Time, underlined that sombre reality.
As CJ began his final journey from the packed church to the sound of a lone piper leading the way, it eerily passed the point where the 16-year-old’s life came to such a sudden end.
Under different circumstances the “blue-eyed boy” with the “cheeky smile”, who Fr Fogarty said “brought people to him like bees to honey”, could have been any one of the hundreds lining the pavement and silently watching the heartbreaking scenes unfold.
Instead, because of last Thursday, CJ is now in St Catherine’s cemetery in Kilcully, his life cut short before it even had a chance to begin.
Later today, the same church will witness the near identical heartbreak of 19-year-old Derry O’Callaghan’s family.
Another needless death, another pointless tragedy.
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