‘Just as his life was opening up, cruel fate took him away’: Funeral held for Christopher Stokes, who died in Menlo Pier tragedy

On Thursday, they returned to the church in Ballinfoyle, this time to to say goodbye to Christopher Stokes.

“Dumbfounded,” was the word Fr Tony Horgan used on the altar to nail the feeling in the community since three boys drowned after their car entered the river Corrib at Menlo Pier in the early hours of last Saturday morning. Twenty-four hours after the funeral mass of 16-year-old John Keenan Sammon, they returned with flowers and stories and tears.

Ballinfoyle is on a height, with a commanding view of the city on clear days. But this noontime was saturated with a soft rain – much the same as most February Thursdays in the city have been for a hundred years. People gathered early and stood in silence. Before the mass, Father Kevin Blade pointed to the low-angled roof, its early-1980s design almost reaching the ground, and couldn’t but smile as he explained how Christopher Stokes found the appeal of climbing it irresistible. Plus, with a bit of imagination and a cardboard box, it could be converted into an ace toboggan slope.

“He was a happy child,” Fr Blade told the congregation. He could still picture him doing his First Communion. The church was full to capacity.

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“I remember him and the others climbing the roof of the church and sliding to the ground on long summer evenings.”

Other images returned to him. The same boys using sticks for goalposts and hours-long games of football on the green. Or shadowboxing. One time the priest came out and joked, “I’ll take ye on, boys”. Christopher Stokes’ return was lightning fast. “Ah no, Father: I wouldn’t like to hurt you.”

“He always called me Father Kevin,” the priest remembered in his homily. Through fragments of stories and vivid snapshots, the loved ones of Christopher Stokes told of who their brother was to them as his grandparents and his parents, Anthony and Kate Stokes, sat with their nine children.

[ ‘Menlo Pier tragedy shocked the whole country’: First funeral held for teenage victims of Galway crash ]

[ Menlo Pier tragedy: Garda leading investigation appeals for more witnesses ]

[ Galway crash: Gardaí to interview occupants of second car near pier ]

‘A bond you couldn’t break’

“You loved all your mates and they all loved you, my brother,” said Michael Stokes, his older brother.

“All us boys in Ballinfoyle we have a bond you couldn’t break. We have our ups and downs, but we are all the one big family. Second and third cousins but like brothers. Well, my brother, you were trying so hard in life to get work to pay for insurance and little things like that. As much as you were struggling, you always had a smile on your face. You often said to Mummy, ‘enjoy money, it comes and goes. You could be dead tomorrow. What use is money to you?’ You were right my brother.”

His sister Katlyn detailed what she is going to miss: the small, brilliant exchanges. Her brother coming into her room, shadow boxing in front of her mirror and declaring, “God, I’m some man”. Or rifling through her stuff for a scent to wear, not caring that it was perfume. “Sure, I’ll smell nice either way,” he would tell her. Or the pair of them going off in his car, the music blasting.

“Or when Mommy would say ‘hurry, Christopher, hurry on and get a nice girl and settle down’, you’d say ‘I’m not getting tied down too soon. I want to live my life to the fullest’.

“But you didn’t get the chance to. All you wanted was eight sons. Or when you would come back home, Daddy would say ‘where were you?’. And you’d say ‘off meeting beoirs’. And he’d laugh.

“You were a ladies’ man, my brother. I miss you ringing me at four or five in the morning to open the door for you. What I’d do for you to come that night to open it. Your heartbeat was still going after 15 or 20 minutes in the water. You waited until your family came to say goodbye before you went to heaven. You had the heart of a lion. We never got enough time with you, but we will cherish the time we did. It is not goodbye. It is see you later. I love you, Christopher.”

It all added up to vivaciousness and energy and laughter suddenly extinguished. Making sense of that was the impossible task left to the two priests. Hard to imagine two men, who were joined by the Bishop of Galway Michael Duignan, with a more natural way of communicating.

Four white horses

“Friendship is blessed,” Fr Blade told the tight bunches of friends gathered in the church. Already, totems had been brought to the altar; his boxing bandages, his phone, a can of Red-Bull, his hairspray. Many of his friends wore T-shirts bearing his image.

“It is good that you will never forget Christopher and that you will always remember him in your progress. Just as his life was opening up and he was spreading his wings, cruel fate took him away. But you can be sure that he has not dropped into nothingness or a non-existence.”

The rain still fell when they carried Christopher Stokes’ gold-plated casket from the church and into a covered carriage drawn by four white horses.

The procession wound in front of Ballinfoyle church and across the Quincentennial Bridge for burial in Rahoon cemetery: the second teenage funeral in consecutive days. The cremation of the third victim, seventeen-year-old Wojcieck Panek from Graiguenamanagh, will take place on Friday.

Galway city continues to stretch and grow and from outside the church, the sprawling scale is unmissable. But on sad close days like this, it will always reveal itself as a small town, too.