Clara stops to mourn crash victim

St Brigid's Church in Clara, Co Offaly, was packed yesterday long before the funeral Mass for 15-year-old Michael White, who died in a bus crash on Tuesday, got underway.

Family, friends, classmates and neighbours filled the church in the village and the surrounding streets to pay respects to the teenager and his family.

The village's pubs, shops and businesses closed for the morning, some with windows shuttered and with black ribbons on their doors.

The mourners were joined by Capt Michael Tracey, representing President Mary McAleese, and Comdt Mick Murray, representing Taoiseach Bertie Ahern.

Minister for Finance and local TD Brian Cowen also attended, along with representatives from all the political parties.

Speakers had been rigged outside the church so the crowd could follow the ceremony. Inside, the coffin, adorned with flowers, candles and two photographs of Michael, awaited the final blessing. Some 11 priests, led by parish priest Fr Patrick Keary, officiated at the funeral. Killina Presentation Secondary School chaplain Fr Ray Kelly and former curates of the parish Fr Padraic McMahon and Fr Martin Mulvaney asisted.

Prayers were said for Michael's parents, Michael and Martina, and his sister Ciara and also for the 32 students of Killina school who were injured in the crash.

Fr Keary spoke of the shock the community felt when news of the bus crash reached them. "Suddenly the whole world was overturned out on the bog road," he said.

He talked about how close Michael had been to his family and urged them and his classmates to remember every moment they spent with him and to cherish it.

He also said his death was a terrible tragedy, but not "the will of God", and that "we don't need God to improve roads or the school transport service".

In the offering of gifts, family and friends brought up the music bag that he carried to piano lessons, a poker chip that symbolised his love of playing cards with family, his copy of a Harry Potter book and photographs; one of his grandmother, who died recently and to whom he had been close, and one of his dogs, Buddy and Holly. After the Mass, neighbours and friends filed by the family for half an hour offering their condolences.

Outside, a shower stopped as the coffin was carried from St Brigid's to a flower-covered hearse.

Some of the wreaths had come from the families of those killed in the Navan bus crash last May. The students of Killina school formed a shivering guard of honour for the hearse, some still with visible injuries from the crash. And Michael made his way for the last time through the centre of the village, and out to the Monastery Cemetery.