Alex Ryan funeral: ‘We have to be challenged by the fact that Alex was too young to die’

The priest who celebrated the funeral Mass of a teenage victim of a potent designer drug has urged young people to reflect on his death and say no to drugs.

Fr John Fitzgerald, the parish priest of Millstreet, Co Cork, said 18-year-old Alex Ryan was too young to die, and that his mother, Irena, and sister, Nicole, have been “robbed of their tomorrows”.

He made his comments in his homily yesterday as hundreds of people gathered in the town’s St Patrick’s Church to say goodbye to Alex, who died in Cork University Hospital (CUH) on Saturday after taking the psychoactive stimulant N-Bomb at a house party in the Greenmount area of Cork City last week. He is believed to be the first Irish victim of the drug.