Tributes to Kerry farmer Anthony O'Mahony as priest seeks to console

A bag of grain — because he always produced “top quality grain” — and a copy of The Farmers Weekly — because no week was complete without it, were placed on the altar for the funeral Mass of Anthony O’Mahony, 74, the farmer who died in an incident involving a teleporter (truck-mounted lift) while on his way to check on his spring wheat at his lands in Rattoo south of the village last Tuesday.

A murder inquiry has been opened into Mr O’Mahony’s death and a local farmer from Rattoo has been charged with murder.

Parish priest Father Brendan Walsh told the congregation at the Church of Saint Peter and Paul’s that Tuesday’s “dreadful events have shattered and broken” the lives of two families. The priest also drew a contrast between the church last Friday which was full of joy and laughter with the confirmation of 35 young people: “Today there is no laughter.”