'Our community is bruised, broken' — Memorial mass held for Creeslough victims
Emergency services at the scene of the explosion. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire
As 10 candles were lit at Saturday's 7.30pm mass at St Michael’s Church in Creeslough, 10 empty chairs formed an orderly line against a wall along the back of the village church.
In an otherwise packed service, the chairs — to anybody who noticed them — were one behind the other lined up against the back wall facing the altar under the Stations of the Cross.
While 18 people didn’t make it home that awful evening, including a young critically injured man who was airlifted to Dublin’s St James’ Hospital, there are now 10 who will never be home again.
Among them, Jessica Gallagher, James O'Flaherty, and Leona Harper.
All their chairs will sit empty this Christmas, and every other.
Also, among the lost, are a five-year-old child who will never experience the usual landmarks of life and rites of passage their classmates will get to have.
The other unimaginable losses, including a mother and her teenage son, make Creeslough still very much a place caught in the numbing grip of grief.
There is hardly a person in this close-knit community that has not been directly affected.
Letterkenny Rugby Club, for whom Leona played, said in a statement: "We are heartbroken to say our worst fears have been confirmed.
"Leona was a talented rugby player and an important part of our U14 girls team.
"To Leona's parents, Hugh and Donna, her brothers Anthony and Jamie, and all of her teammates, we offer you our deepest condolences and support.
"There are no words that feel strong enough at a moment of deep sorrow such as this.
"Rest in peace, Leona."
Talk to anybody, and they all speak of the numbing shock of what has happened.
Given the role the Applegreen service station played in the village, it really is as if the heart of the community has been ripped out of it.
Councillor Noreen McGarvey said: “The mood is still one of just pure devastation and utter shock that this should happen. It is a horrendous accident that is just totally unbelievable and so totally unexpected.
“But they are a strong community — they have all come together, even though it is not going to replace what they have lost.
“It was the shop, it was the Post Office, it was the filling station, it was the hardware store, it had everything.”
Asked if she feels the heart has been ripped out of the community, she pauses and then replies: “Oh, absolutely.
“It is just so unexpected, and how quick it happened, and it is just the pure devastation, and the enormity of it.”
Hours earlier, there had been people who — throughout Friday night and into the cold early hours of Saturday who had stood vigil at “the line” — the name locally for the Garda cordon keeping people a few hundred metres away from the scene of the explosion while first emergency personnel fought to rescue people then changed their operation to one of recovery.
There was the raw and mostly silent anguish and agony, not just of the bereaved, but also those who had yet to be told, or yet to find out whether or not they too would be among the bereaved.
These were people clinging to some desperate hope that their loved one might be found alive by some miracle.
At that stage, that was all they had to cling to — hope against hope and hope in a miracle.
As they stood at the line waiting, friends and family did what they could to comfort them, even if it was little more than a hand placed on a hand, a gentle touch of a shoulder, a sympathetic look, and other unspoken gestures of empathy and comfort.
Sadly, for those who held that vigil for their loved ones throughout that cold wet night, it was to end with the approach by a garda tasked with breaking the news to them walking towards them and having to break the news to them.
As each body was recovered, a sudden silence fell over the crowd assembled at the line.
Those involved in the rescue operation throughout the night sat or stood in silent huddles during their breaks, too tired and emotional to wipe off the dust that covered them.
Other than the sound of machinery, the night was filled with little more than hushed voices and the sound of machines removing rubble.
At one point on Friday evening, around 10.30pm, rescuers thought they had heard a voice and everyone was asked to remain silent.
The area fell silent. Everybody stopped what they were doing.
But nothing came of it and the digging began again in earnest at the blow of a whistle.
Creeslough parish priest Father John Joe Duffy broke down in tears as he recalled giving those who died the Last Rites.
“I was there to pray over them,” he told reporters.
“I knew some of those children through their school and the parish.
“This is unfair, it is unreal.”
He later led last night’s mass, which was attended by more than about 400 people.
Taoiseach Micheál Martin, Tánaiste Leo Varadkar, Sinn Féin leader Mary Lou McDonald, SDLP leader Colum Eastwood and Sinn Féin's Stormont leader Michelle O'Neill were also there.
During the service, prayers were said for the “the beautiful 10 souls we have lost’.
A red candle was lit by the Bishop of Raphoe Alan McGuckian for each of the victims.
A short while later, he stood up, turned to mourners, paused, and spoke to people in the community who he said now feel “broken and bruised”.
He said: “There is certainly brokenness, ‘bruised-ness’ in the heart of this beautiful community, this community of Creeslough, our community of Donegal and our national community.
“It has been sorely bruised — broken even — by the horror of this situation to a greater or lesser extent.” And he spoke of a word that had struck him when it was used by others to describe what had happened.
“A word that I heard just stuck with me,” he said.
“One person used it, but it was about what had happened.
“They said it is so . . . random.
“It could happen to anybody.
“It could happen anywhere but there are some in our community for whom it happened.
“There's, I suppose, almost a sinister thing about the word ‘random’.”
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