The funeral took place in Buncrana, Co Donegal, yesterday of one of the three teenagers killed in a road-traffic accident on the outskirts of the town on Thursday night.
Shane Cuffe (18), Crana View, Buncrana, was buried following Requiem Mass in St Mary's Church, Cockhill. The funeral of his friend and work colleague Owen Doherty (18), Cloncool Park, Buncrana, will take place from the same church this morning and the funeral of the third victim, Aine O'Leary (16), Selskor Rise, Skerries, Co Dublin, also takes place today.
All three were killed instantly when the Vauxhall Astra Mr Cuffe was driving crashed into a parapet on the Buncrana to Illies road at Ballymagan.
The sole survivor of the crash, Liz-Anne O'Keeffe, (17), who was the only one of the four teenagers in the car wearing a seat-belt, remains in an ill but stable condition in Derry's Altnagelvin Hospital. She is the daughter of local Garda Sergeant John O'Keeffe.
Hundreds of mourners, most of them teenagers, attended yesterday's Mass, where they heard Father Con McLaughlin appeal to young people to think of life's hidden dangers.
The victim, who is survived by his parents Joe and Agnes, his brothers and sisters and his baby daughter Megan, was buried in the adjoining cemetery.
Fathert McLauglin, who gave the Last Rites to the three victims at the scene on Thursday night, told the mourners he had been present at the scenes of the three recent fatal road-traffic accidents in Buncrana, which had claimed the lives of nine people in the last three weeks.
"No one can possibly imagine the trauma and grief that the parents, the families and the friends of these three young people are suffering at this moment. God only knows the terrible pain and emptiness that is in their hearts today. All of us have been touched by this terrible tragedy, the third in such a short time.
"When you are young, you believe tragedy and death is something that happens to others, like to older people. For the young, life stretches out in front of them. Their energy and enthusiasm makes them see only the possibilities and the fulfilment that future life will bring. The buzz and the risks are all part of life - they look forward, they don't look back.
"Today, I ask our young people here to think, to think of the dangers that seem hidden to them that can bring tragedy . . . so that we don't come to church again in similar circumstances or witness the tragic loss of our cherished young people," said Father McLaughlin.