Funeral of Karen Buckley to be held in Co Cork on Tuesday

The family of murdered Irish student Karen Buckley are finalising arrangements to bring her home to Co Cork in preparation for her funeral mass and burial on Tuesday.

Ms Buckley’s body will be flown from Glasgow to Cork on Sunday and then brought by her family to the hillside farm where she grew up at Glynn in Mourneabbey.

It’s understood that the family hope to have a rosary for relatives, close friends and neighbours at the house on Sunday evening when they can mourn their daughter in private.

Ms Buckley’s remains will then lie in repose at O’Connell’s Funeral Home, Mallow, from 4pm to 8pm on Monday before being removed to the church in Analeentha in Mourneabbey.

A funeral Mass will be held at the Church of St Michael the Archangel, Analeentha at 2pm on Tuesday before burial at St John’s Cemetery in nearby Burnfort, also in the parish.

Ms Buckley (24) disappeared while out with friends at the Sanctuary niteclub on Dumbarton Road in Glasgow in the early hours of April 12th and her disappearance triggered a major search.

The police investigation into her disappearance became a murder inquiry when her body was found at a farm at High Craighton some 13kms north of Glasgow on April 15th.

The Buckley family had returned from Glasgow last weekend after police told them that it would be a number of days before their daughter’s body would be released to them.

The family were on Friday notified by the Irish Consulate in Edinburgh that the Procurator Fiscal - Scotland's equivalent to the DPP - was releasing Ms Buckley's body.

A man accused of her murder, Alexander Pacteau (21) had exercised his right to have a second post-mortem carried out on Ms Buckley to assist in any defence he might make.

That second post-mortem was carried out at a Glasgow hospital on Friday morning and afterwards the Procurator Fiscal confirmed that Ms Buckley’s body was being released to her family.

It’s understood that an undertaker in Glasgow has been liaising with the family’s undertaker in Mallow and arrangements are being finalised to fly Ms Buckley’s body to Cork on Sunday.

In a death notice posted last night on RIP.ie, the family detail the funeral arrangements for their daughter who went to Glasgow in January to study occupational therapy.

The death notice, placed by her parents, John and Marian and brothers, Brendan, Kieran and Damien, simply records her death in Glasgow “unexpectedly” before recording their loss.

“Sadly missed by her heartbroken parents, brothers, grandmother, uncles, aunts, sister-in-law Niamh, cousins, relatives, neighbours and her many friends. May she rest in peace.”