Berkeley funerals: Hundreds attend Mass for victims

Hundreds of mourners are attending the funeral of Eoghan Culligan in Rathfarnham.

The funerals of two victims of the Berkeley tragedy have taken place in Dublin.

21-year-olds Eimear Walsh from Foxrock, and 21-year-old Eoghan Culligan from Rathfarnham, were among the six killed in the balcony collapse last week.

[comment] Eoghan Culligan's coffin is carried by his pallbearers in Rathfarnham.[/comment]

During the ceremony in Rathfarnham for Eoghan, symbols of his life were brought to the altar including a sports jersey, his grandfather's watch, a Lord of the Rings staff and ring.

Fr Richard Olin from his former school St Mary's in Rathmines welcomed mourners to the church, saying: "We want in this funeral Mass to celebrate what we consider to be an all too short a life for Eoghan."

"God doesn't always see it that way … that long life isn't always about a long number of years, but what we put into it along the way."

"And for sure we know that Cully put everything into it along the way."

Eoghan is survived by his parents Marie and Gerry and his brothers Andrew and Stephen. His girlfriend Sarah read a poem she had written for the funeral, describing Eoghan as her soulmate.

Eoghan Culligan's brothers, Stephen and Andy, fought tears yet brought moments of laugher to the congregation as they remembered their younger sibling.

"He was always the one who saw both the common ground and the stupidity of our arguments. He was our translator, our sense-maker, our peacemaker, He was our wiser brother," Stephen said.

The Culligan brothers remembered Eoghan as an entertaining young man and revelled in his contradictions - a trendsetter who needed advice and someone who dieted with a pizza.

Andy said he brought the other brothers together despite petty arguments and as the family grew older he kept it youthful by always treating their parents as "mum and dad".

"Just beautifully strange and always up for the laugh. Just weird and wonderful. That's the type of bloke he was," he said.

He added: "What's been very apparent to me over the last few days, even though I knew it being through some up and down times myself, Eoghan would always be the person I could rely on.

"He was my little brother but he was my big brother at the same time."

The funeral of 21-year-old Eimear Walsh in Foxrock heard that Ireland is united in grief.

Eimear was a talented musician and singer, and her friends from the Parish music group played as her coffin was borne into the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour in Foxrock.

[comment] Outside Eimear's service in Foxrock.[/comment]

Her father Jim described Eimear as kind hearted, fun loving and independent - and said her family will be forever proud of her.

"We are very proud of who she was and what she achieved," he said. "She was among other things kind-hearted, generous, fun-loving, independent-minded, very bright, confident but never pretentious.

"Like any young person she was interested in having a good time, hanging out with friends, essentially just living in the moment."

The close connections between the students caught up the accident in the apartment complex was revealed further by Ms Walsh's father.

Eimear's close friend Aoife Beary remains in hospital in California following the five storey fall, Lorcan Miller, one of the others to die was "best pals" with Eimear and were in the same medicine class in University College Dublin, while she was friends with Olivia Burke, whose remains are being repatriated, from their school days in Loreto College Foxrock.

The family recalled Ms Walsh as deceptively easy going but determined and a good singer like her mother, Patricia.

Mr Walsh said: "Now that we have lost Eimear so tragically there's a huge void in our lives, however, knowing Eimear she would want us to be strong for each other, pick ourselves up and keep going. We hope and pray that one day we will be reunited."