TWO WEEKS to the day after he was shot dead by police in Bolivia, Michael Dwyer (24) was laid to rest in his native Co Tipperary.
His funeral took place in the village of Terryglass, not far from his family home at Ballinderry and 6,000 miles from the hotel room in the city of Santa Cruz where he died on the morning of April 16th.
The controversial nature of his killing, and allegations that he had been involved in a plot to assassinate President Evo Morales, were temporarily put aside yesterday as family, friends and neighbours gathered to mourn his death.
At Requiem Mass in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, parish priest Fr Michael Cooney described Mr Dwyer as “a loving son who had remembered Mother’s Day just a few weeks ago”.
Mr Dwyer’s mother Caroline; father Martin; sisters Aisling (25) and Ciara (21); and brother Emmet (14) were joined by hundreds of mourners.
The Mass, which featured hymns in Irish, English and Latin, was relayed via loudspeakers to an overflowing crowd and a large media contingent gathered in a churchyard warmed by sunshine.
Fr Cooney said Mr Dwyer’s “tragic” death was “an awful, awful cross” which had “shattered” his family. Prefacing his homily with the question: “Who is Michael Dwyer?” the priest asked the congregation to remember the young man they knew and not the character portrayed in “the press and media and general talk”.
He invited people to remember instead the “loving and well-loved son and brother” from “a quiet, hardworking family” who “loved working on the farm” as a boy, was a “tough, uncompromising hurler” who had inherited his father’s “style and skill” but who was also a “good-time young man, the ladies’ man and the man who loved his car”.
“Michael”, he added, was a “fun-loving, good-natured, generous person always thinking of others” who had “made friends easily and had many friends”.
One of those friends, Ronan Fox, was applauded after a eulogy in which he recalled sharing a house in Dublin with “Mike”, whom he described as “the kind of friend who stands by you when you need somebody to be there”.
Mr Fox said his friend “was the kind of guy who took what life threw at him and ran with it”.
While “family and friends were the most important things”, he added that “cars and women were his passion”.
Offertory gifts reflecting Mr Dwyer’s interests – a hurley, a picture of his Toyota Levin car, his honours degree in construction management from the Galway-Mayo Institute of Technology and a family photograph – had been brought to the altar earlier. Fr Cooney read a brief statement from the Dwyer family, thanking the Department of Foreign Affairs (which was represented by Peadar Carpenter) for its assistance.
The Mass ended with the playing of Fix You, a song by rock group Coldplay which was requested by Mr Dwyer’s “much-loved” younger brother Emmet. Fr Cooney drew mourners’ attention to a line from the lyrics “lights will lead you”.
Mr Dwyer’s coffin was then borne from the church for a private burial in the adjoining graveyard.