Husband attends funeral of Stella Gallagher a week after couple attacked at Cork home
The husband of Stella Gallagher was among those who shouldered her coffin at her funeral Mass today, just over a week after both were attacked in a knife incident at their home.
Stella Gallagher, 59, of Shrewsbury Downs in Ballinlough, died at Cork University Hospital on November 17 after being rushed there with stab wounds.
Her husband, 63-year-old Brian, was also seriously injured and underwent emergency neck surgery following the attack.
He was later discharged and attended his wife’s funeral Mass on Tuesday in Our Lady of Lourdes Church in Ballinlough.
He was among those who carried her coffin from the church for burial in St Michael’s Cemetery in Blackrock.
His brother Alan spoke at the beginning of the ceremony at Brian’s request.
He said his sister-in-law “had an inbuilt generosity and was always doing things for others or giving them things."
He added: “When cooking for two people, she would cook enough for six.”
He also said that even the family cat adored Stella, making a “beeline for her” no matter who else was in the room.
Mr Gallagher told mourners of his sister-in-law’s love for baking, gardening, music and singing. He said she always returned home from a Cork Social Health Project (Shep) Choir event in great form. The choir sang during the funeral Mass.
He told the congregation: "Stella was an excellent baker and got pleasure from giving you scones or sourdough bread or apple tarts or whatever she had just baked. She would come in after losing track of time and after spending hours in her garden, delighted to be able to present you with her harvest of blackcurrants or potatoes or beetroot or whatever was in season. Stella seemed to know the name of every flower and every tree and on a recent visit to JFK arboretum in Wexford, she was like a child in a sweet shop."
Through tears, Mr Gallagher said: "We are so grateful to have shared our lives with this lovely person. We love you Stella and we always will."
Monsignor Gearóid Dullea, Co-PP Ballinlough, told the congregation: “When we are confronted with death we experience a maelstrom of emotions. We are frightened, broken-hearted, confused, angry, bewildered, paralysed, lonely, even traumatised.
"The death of Stella last Monday night has left us with all these reactions, and many more, as well as leaving us with questions, aching and pleadings in our hearts.”
He added: “Stella’s shocking death has brought a great pall of darkness, not only over the Gallagher and Griffin families, but also on so many others - Stella’s colleagues from her work in Eli Lilly, the local communities in Ballinlough and Ballinspittle, her friends and the Togher Community Garden and her fellow singers in the SHEP choir and many more besides.
"Stella’s death has shocked us, stunned us and shaken us.”
He said she was “deeply loved as wife, as mother, as sister, as daughter-in-law, as sister-in-law, as aunt, as cousin, as friend”.
He described her as a positive person who was “often humming a song, with a quiet religious faith”.
He continued: “In fact her family mentioned that a recent book she dipped into was about Saint Teresa, one of the greatest saints to teach us how to trust in God implicitly, even when there is darkness all around us, a bit like a small child putting its hand into its parent’s hand for strength, for guidance, for reassurance, for safety and for love.”
An Taoiseach Micheál Martin TD was represented at the funeral by his Aide de Camp, Commandant Joe Glennon.
Concelebrating the Mass with Monsignor Dullea were Fr Gerard Dunne and Rev Alan Marley of the UCC chaplaincy team.
A man has been charged with her murder.
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