Dublin woman pleads for return of parents' ashes after thieves take urn

A mother of five has appealed to thieves who broke into her house and stole her deceased parents’ ashes to anonymously surrender them.

Rosaleen Kelly returned to her home in the early hours of yesterday morning to find the urn and her children’s Christmas presents had been stolen.

She had spent the day in the Coombe maternity hospital in Dublin, where her daughter Stephanie (19) had given birth to a girl on Monday morning.

“When I got home I went around to a house around the corner to see in the new year, where my neighbour was minding the four youngest kids.”

When she and her children went to their home on Deerpark Place, Kiltipper, Tallaght, Dublin 24, just after 3.30am, they discovered the break-in.

“I can replace anything but the ashes; I’m just devastated,” she said.

“Whoever took them could leave them at a church or a Garda station, anywhere they could be found.”

Ms Kelly’s parents, Joe and Rose Curley from Tallaght, died five and four years ago respectively.

“They were angels. My da worked on the docks and my ma always loved a bit of craic. My da fell off a ladder and he was badly injured and died and my ma had motor neuron disease.”

While their ashes were mixed and most of them scattered over cliffs in Ballybunion, Co Kerry, she and her siblings each kept a portion in urns in their homes.