Devastated family will return to wedding church — this time for a funeral

TWO white balloons dance into life as a lorry speeds past, only a silver ribbon tied to the roadside signpost preventing them flying away.

Partially deflated and battered by a fortnight of brutal weather, the names decoratively penned on each are still unmistakable — Michaela and John.

Beside a rain-soaked page depicting a cartoon bride and groom, they point the way off Co Tyrone’s busy A5 and down a narrow country lane to St Malachy’s chapel in the townland of Ballymacilroy, where two weeks ago the teacher married the love of her life. That day Mickey Harte was the proudest man in Ireland as he accompanied his only daughter on the half-mile drive from the family home on the Glencull Road to see her wed Down footballer John McAreavey.

In the days to come the heartbroken Tyrone manager and his wife Marian will make the same journey behind her coffin. The wilting wedding flowers that still lie at the altar inside the small church will be replaced with wreaths.

The wrenching contrast between joy and despair; love and loss; good and evil, has intensified the impact of a death that has left the county’s most famous Gaelic footballing family beyond desolation.

This is GAA land through and through. How could it not be after Harte delivered them three All-Ireland title wins in six years.

On the winding road to his home club, Errigal Ciaran, two sets of home-made goal posts sit in a front garden.

The balls lying in the net evidence of another budding footballer hoping one day to catch the county manager’s eye.

It was appropriate that the towering windmills standing in the fields opposite the deserted pitch had stopped turning.

Harte played full forward for the club in his youth and in his one year as manager led it to an Ulster title. Part-time caretaker Gerard McCann decided to open the clubhouse this morning just in case anyone felt compelled to drop by.

Burst pipes during the deep Christmas freeze had left the building without heat, and condensation coated the glass-faced trophy cabinets containing some of the spoils delivered during Harte’s brief reign.

“If Mickey was here, Michaela was here, whether it was a match or just training,” said Mr McCann. “She would have stood up in the stand watching. It was Mickey and Michaela, always the two of them together.”

In nearby Dungannon, where Michaela Harte taught Irish and religion at St Patrick’s Academy, people were still struggling to take in what had happened. “It’s absolutely desperate,” said Frances Carolan.

“It’s terrible to lose your daughter any way, but to lose her by murder, on her honeymoon, it’s terrible altogether. She taught my grandson in the academy, it’s very hard for him, he’s very upset about it, he’s only 12.”

Robbie Hassan used to teach with Mickey at St Ciaran’s in Ballygawley.

“I feel absolutely shocked and if I feel this bad about it I’ve no idea how Mickey and Marian feel about it. They must be absolutely devastated, they just doted on her and she doted on them.

“I was talking to Marian last Friday about the wedding and what a good time they had, she was absolutely over the moon how it had gone so well, and then all of a sudden this ... it’s just crazy.”