Bishop: Creeslough survivors 'have a sense of guilt'

Father John Joe Duffy lights ten red candles candles at St Michael's Church in Creeslough Co Donegal, for the ten victims of the Applegreen service station explosion as he prepares for Mass. Picture: Brian Lawless/PA Wire

Creeslough priest Fr John Joe Duffy has called on the public to keep the people of the Donegal village in their thoughts and prayers in the months ahead.

Speaking as the village prepares to gather for its fourth day of funerals, a week on from the blast that claimed ten lives, Fr Duffy said the community is “just at the beginning of a long journey of recovery”.

Fr Duffy said he was one of the community and that the community was his family. 

“It’s like I lost brothers and sister," he told RTÉ radio's Morning Ireland. 

No community should have to experience what happened in Creeslough, he said.

Last week, four men, three women, two teenagers, a boy and a girl, and a five-year-old girl died in the village.

Fr Duffy said the community would need “lots of support” and he urged people to avail of counselling services.

Bishop of Raphoe Alan McGuckian described Fr Duffy as being a “rock” for the people, adding: “He is convinced he is being carried by the prayers of so many people.

“He would say he is getting strength from outside himself to go and meet the family… He’s very clear that people’s prayers are giving him help to speak the right words.” 

Hugh Kelly, 59, one of the ten victims of the explosion at Applegreen service station in the village of Creeslough in Co Donegal.

Speaking a week on from the explosion, Bishop McGuckian said: “We all have that sense almost of guilt, on the one hand it’s relief that it wasn’t me or it wasn’t my sister or my son, and then the guilt about feeling that, that it wasn’t mine but it was this beautiful person here.

“There is this randomness that is scary … this could happen at every moment.” 

He described to the BBC being at the scene of the explosion, saying: “I don’t think I have ever seen anything sadder.

I was standing close to a couple who were about to identify their beloved who had just been taken out of the building, and it was just incredibly heart-wrenching. 

"There were no words, you were just there with the person.

“The solidarity, the tsunami of prayer that has come has carried people.”

For the fourth day in a row the community of Creeslough, Co Donegal will gather at St Michael's Church for a funeral.

Hugh Kelly, 59, was the oldest person to be killed in the explosion at a service station that killed ten people.

Mr Kelly worked in farming and construction during his life and leaves behind his partner Linda, her daughter and grandchild, his brother and two sisters.

His funeral will get underway at 11am.

Applegreen will hold a minute's silence across its locations today in honour of the ten people killed.

It will take place at 3.15pm today, exactly one week after the tragic incident.

Applegreen continues to raise funds for the local community of Creeslough in association with the Irish Red Cross.

Tomorrow the final two funerals will take place - those of 50-year-old Robert Garwe and his five-year-old daughter Shauna Flanagan Garwe.

Gardaí are continuing their investigations into the cause of the blast.

Additional reporting by PA