Shooting death couple laid to rest

Hundreds of mourners gathered at St Patrick’s Church, Fermoy, Co Cork, yesterday, to pay last respects to two young students found dead from gunshot wounds last Friday night.

“TO all who are struggling today, to all who are desperately searching for meaning in these appalling events, I say: hold on in hope, when the clouds around you are full of disappointment, brokenness, despair, anger and grief. These clouds will lift for you.”

With these words Fr Gerard Coleman tried to bring sense, hope and relief to two families crippled with grief.

The funeral of 20-year-old Wayne Roche, a catering student at Cork Institute of Technology (CIT), took place first; on his coffin a single red rose and a framed school photograph of his smiling face.

Nearby, the coffin of 19-year-old Clíona Magner, his one-time girlfriend, shot by her former boyfriend before Wayne turned the gun on himself.

Speaking at Clíona’s funeral Mass yesterday afternoon, chief celebrant Fr Tony O’Brien said no one in the North Cork town would ever forget where they were and what they were doing when news of the double tragedy broke. Both students were from Fermoy and had studied at CIT; Clíona was a second-year student of mechanical engineering.

“There was a noted sense of silence all over the town on Saturday, but we shook ourselves out of it and a huge outpouring of charity and love enveloped us,” Fr O’Brien said.

“It could have been your own daughter or son or sister or brother, it struck a chord in our humanity.”

Humanity abounded at the removals the previous night when Clíona’s parents, Pat and Deirdre Magner, embraced Wayne’s parents, Pat and Margaret Roche, in a mutual outpouring of grief.

Hundreds of CIT students attended both funerals and college classes were cancelled as a mark of respect. Townspeople hung black ribbons on doors and businesses closed.