'The life and soul of his family': Emotional scenes as Kerry teen Thomas Healy laid to rest
Thomas Healy died last Wednesday when the car he was driving crashed into a tree on the Ross Road in Killarney.
This Saturday morning would have been so different. Like many other weekends, Thomas Healy might have been preparing for training or for a match for Killarney Athletic AFC U15/16s, or had an eye on any upcoming engagements with Beaufort GAA. But it was a very different Saturday morning.
The funeral cortege for the 14-year-old, who died last Wednesday when the car he was driving crashed into a tree on the Ross Road, instead departed his family home so as to arrive at St Mary's Church, Beaufort for Requiem Mass. As his coffin was carried into the church, Thomas' brother, Jack, sang played the Beatles' , altering the lyrics at one stage to "shine until tomorrow, young Healy".
Items were placed on the coffin - a photograph of the young man, an O'Neill's football, a model tractor. These were symbols of a young life that appears to have captivated all those around him, the teenager who could chat happily with the toddlers and pensioners, who had a sense of mischief and who, in the words of his brother, Danny, made everyone else run on "Thomas time".
The clock didn't quite stop early last Wednesday morning, the memories of that truncated life echoing around the Church, but there was also a sense of what Fr Kieran O'Sullivan described as the "sadness and sorrow" of his loss.
Fr O'Sullivan, of the nearby Glenbeigh parish, described how he had heard the news of the crash on RTÉ's , and how we was informed by someone in a shop a short time later, while en route for his second Covid-19 vaccination, of the identity of the young man who had died.Â
The priest already knew the family. A visit to the Healy home on Thursday evening outlined the extent to which Thomas was "dearly loved", he told mourners both in the church and the 1,000-plus watching online.
"Thomas was the life and soul of the family," he said, adding that the teenager had inherited a great singing voice, to go alongside his burgeoning talent as a soccer and gaelic football player.
Some family members were deeply emotional when reading the Prayers of the Faithful, including another brother, Micheal. Danny then paid a fulsome tribute to the youngest of the four brothers, the baby who arrived as "the present of a lifetime" for their mother Julie's 40th birthday, instead of the original plan of a trip to Paris.
Danny said that Thomas' life lasted just 14-and-a-half years but that the memories would live on forever, with the family schedule having run on "Thomas time". He described Thomas as an "amazing, ebullient brother" with natural ability, a newfound interest in golf and whose toy of choice was always a ball of some description. His fealty to Kerry football meant he was being breastfed on the touchline of games as a baby, and he had his brothers to help "toughen him up" as he got older. Mourners heard Thomas was nice and polite but also with a sense of mischief.
His own voice breaking with emotion, Danny said that their father Ger's unfailing commitment to fundraising had gained a new assistant in recent years with Thomas, through the family passion for vintage Ford tractors. As Thomas used to say, "if it ain't blue, it won't do.
"That summed up Thomas," Danny said. "The apple of his parents' eye and a beloved brother."
Shortly afterwards the coffin was borne aloft and carried back outside as Jack sang 'In a land where we’ll never grow old', telling Thomas that he loved him.
Fr O'Sullivan had earlier remarked of Thomas: "It was said to him that there was a Kerry jersey in him.
It's understood he had received a call-up to the South Kerry development squad.
Danny went one further, saying just this week there was word that he was in line for wearing the green and gold. What they wouldn't give for those weekends.
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