Friday 5th April 2013 a sad sad day in Dunderry

The pain was palpable.Two funerals the same morning in a tiny village of one shop, two pubs a  school , a Church and fifty houses.The community managed well. The Coffey funeral was at 11.00 a.m.,the Feeney funeral an hour and a half later.The Coffey mourners were in the graveyard before the Feeney mourners arrived in the Church.Two desperate sad occasions.One life lived to its fullest span,exceeding the four score and ten,the other tragically cut short in its  prime.
There is no convenient time to die.no matter what age you are.
The locals know and love the bereaved families.Every house was represented.Both families were consoled ,if consolation is possible.These people will not die in the minds of their families .There is not a day that I don't think of those who went before me and I expect everybody is the same.Our religion tells us that life is everlasting and that there is a Resurrection of the body on the Last Day.The Church was overflowing for both funerals so that many,many more were left outside than were inside.Thoughtfully outside loudspeakers were mounted.Lapsed and a la carte Catholics were not long getting back into harness.Just scratch the surface.
Many stayed in the Church from before 11.00 a.m. to after 1.30 p.m.to pay their respects to both.Thousands of mourners from outside the Parish turned up ,both on the Thursday night and the Friday to pay their respects.Many came from abroad.
Dinny's brother P.J .came home from America.Daughters Blaithnid and Siobhain came from Australia and England respectively.Joe Coffey came from England and the Fagan brothers also came from England.Gerry Coogan came from the States.
I'.m sure there were more.
Cromwell could not scatter us better than our own.
Normally at funerals you get at least some animated chatter as the non locals scan for the "boys",i.e.the boozers and the "wild men "to sidle up to and have the craic.All the while paying respect to the bereaved and thanking the Lord it is not themselves.
But not on Friday,with a few exceptions.You could cut the sadness with a knife.Why .why oh why.Were there some there who may have pushed too far ?You would go mad wondering.
There were those there who have gone through this process in their own circle.The first thing  a family thinks of in the morning and the last thing at night,.You could see it in their faces.
Under the governance of our own it is getting too common by far.
A Day  of Reckoning will come and authors of the glib cliches will get their just desserts.
Friday evening at six meself and Liam prayed hard.Everybody here is doing likewise.
We don't need more days like this.