THE IRISH couple living in the US who lost their lives in a road crash in Iowa while on a family holiday were laid to rest in bright sunshine in the prettily painted village of Causeway, a short distance from the Atlantic Ocean in Co Kerry yesterday.
Joe O’Connell (50), a Kerry hurler and businessman, and his wife Anne Coleman (44), a Galway camogie player, are survived by their three children, aged 15, 13 and 10, who were not seriously injured in the crash.
The couple had met while both worked with Kerry Group locally, Joe as an engineer and Anne in administration, friends said. They had emigrated to the US under a decade ago where Joe had initially worked for Kerry Group.
The Taoiseach was represented by Comdt Michael Treacy and mourners were drawn from various walks of life, from the GAA to the Kerry Group, at the requiem Mass.
The Church of St John the Baptist overflowed with mourners who included their children and their widowed mothers Mai O’Connell and Bridie Coleman.
The homilist, Dr Séamus O’Connell of Maynooth, a cousin of the dead man, said Mai and Bridie would miss their children, but addressing the grieving children directly he said: “To Sarah, Colman and Maeve, this Mass is for you in a special way . . .
“For you the tragedy is deeper and greater and we have to, all of us, find a way forward for you.”
Their parents’ beautiful lives had been cut short, too short. They were courageous people, people of faith who took a risk, passionate about everything they did not only socially, but on the playing field and in all aspects of their lives. They loved each other deeply and they had died together.
Addressing the children again, Dr O’Connell said their mother and father were folded in sleep: “Let Mammy and Daddy sleep on till the stormy night is gone and the eternal morrow is born,” the priest said.
Prayers of the faithful, read by friends from home and the US, asked for comfort and consolation for the children and the wish that their parents’ dreams for them be realised; the prayers were also for the “broken hearts” of the O’Connell and Coleman families and for the people of three parishes, including St Thomas Aquinas, Madison, Wisconsin and many communities who knew them.
A guard of honour was provided by Causeway GAA. At the Mass, William O’Connell, brother of the deceased man, compared the couple to an olive tree, struck by lightning but whose wood was never discarded, but would be crafted into cherished pieces.