THE funeral of the third man killed in a hackney cab along with two of his friends while returning home from a day at the Listowel races last Sunday took place yesterday, in Carrigkerry, near Newcastle West, Co Limerick.
The funerals over the past days have heard how the deaths have touched three separate communities in west Limerick.
The funeral yesterday of Thomas Murphy (32) at the Church of St Mary in Carrigkerry, followed those of his friends, Richard Feury (37), from Newcastle West, and Thomas Holmes (32) from Fenagh.
Mr Murphy’s brother, Michael, survived the crash.
Offertory gifts at Thomas’ funeral Mass yesterday included a Liverpool football club shirt and a Limerick GAA jersey. Chief celebrant Carrigkerry parish priest Fr Larry Madden said Mr Murphy was the eldest of seven children. He was a sports enthusiast, very family oriented and had “a natural concern for the welfare of others”.
“He would be regarded as sensible as is evidenced by the fact he took a taxi home,” the priest said.
Life was like a jigsaw, but sometimes we did not have the benefit of the picture to see where the pieces fit, Fr Madden said.
“Some of the pieces unfortunately have very rough elements and they do not fit into our scheme of things.” Throughout the Bible there were “very strong elements” of confusion, frustration, pain and despair, because of various hardships people had to bear. This would always be the case.
Senior boys from the secondary school at Abbeyfeale, where Mr Murphy sat his Leaving in 1996, filled a number of church rows.