Memorial service held for Irish victims of air tragedy

A MEMORIAL service was held at Trinity College Dublin yesterday evening for the Irish victims of the Air France tragedy: Dr Aisling Butler, Dr Eithne Walls and Dr Jane Deasy.

A framed photograph of the three friends, who were Trinity graduates, was placed on the altar in the college chapel, which was decorated with white lilies.

The young doctors had been travelling together on the Rio de Janeiro to Paris flight that disappeared over the Atlantic Ocean last week.

They were returning from a holiday in Brazil.

College chaplain Fr Paddy Gleeson led the ecumenical service of remembrance and thanksgiving, along with Rev Julian Hamilton, Rev Darren McCallig and Fr Kieran Dunne.

Representatives of the Butler, Walls and Deasy families lit memorial candles and offered prayers, while friends and former classmates Dr Fergal O’Duffy and Dr Gráinne O’Kane delivered homilies.

Dr O’Duffy said the three young women were easygoing, fun-loving and happy friends to be with.

“It is in some ways comforting to know they were sitting side by side in their final moments. As always, they had each other,” he said.

Dr O’Kane said members of the girls’ medical class of 2007 had been reunited in shock, disbelief and great sadness.

“God, you have chosen to take the best of us,” she said.

Family and friends of the three doctors had travelled from all over the world to be at the service, Dr O’Kane said.

Fr Gleeson thanked all those who attended the service, including representatives of the President and the Taoiseach.

He also thanked the French and Brazilian ambassadors, as well as a representative from the US embassy, and welcomed two Air France representatives, saying their “presence and care was appreciated”.