Carrickmines Fire: Miley blows kisses to departed cousins as second family buried

The white coffin of baby Mary Connors looked tiny in the hearse that was more suited to a casket three times its length and twice its width, but her little cousin did his best to fill the space around it with kisses, writes Caroline O’Doherty

Miley Connors, lifted up by his father to see inside, reached out to touch the coffin, blessed himself with both his right and his left hand, and then blew extravagant kisses all around it.

He did the same at the coffins of Mary’s brothers, Jim and Christy, cousins and playmates he would never see again. The siblings were playing together in the garden of their uncle John Lynch the day before the fire that wiped them out.