Anthony Foley Funeral: The sound of slow heartbreak, rendered in simple but beautiful words

“Are you going up the hill?” The man in the coffee shop asked, and right enough, we were. Yesterday in Killaloe everyone was going up the hill.

Ireland head coach Joe Schmidt arrives at St Flannan’s Church, Killaloe, Co Clare. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA

The crowd had started gathering early by the banks of Lough Derg to send Anthony Foley on his way — sporting stars, ministers and politicians, and locals for whom the man known as Axel was one of them — the hometown hero.

There was a sense of a state funeral about it — the state being Munster, a kingdom, its own dominion.