President attends service for heroic garda

UPWARDS OF 1,000 people stood in silence in the small village of Manor Kilbride in the Wicklow hills yesterday evening, as the coffin of Garda Ciaran Jones was removed to his local church, St Brigid’s.

Garda Jones lost his life while warning oncoming motorists of danger at Ballysmuttan Bridge near his home during torrential rain on Monday night.

After members of Manor Kilbride GAA club carried the coffin along the leafy country roads lined with gardaí, members of the GAA and Clondalkin Rugby Club, Fr Padraic McDermott placed a hand of welcome on the coffin at the church door.

Inside, Fr McDermott welcomed the chief mourners, parents Brenda and John Jones, their daughter Michelle and her boyfriend Shane, their son Alan and Garda Jones’s girlfriend Claire. Fr McDermott was assisted in the service by Garda chaplain Fr Joe Kennedy and Church of Ireland Rector of Blessington Leonard Ruddock. He said the presence of President Mary McAleese brought honour on the community and he also welcomed Tánaiste Eamon Gilmore, Garda Commissioner Martin Callinan and the Taoiseach’s representative Comdt Michael Treacy. Brian Purcell, secretary general of the Department of Justice, was also welcomed as was Brig Gen Michael Finn, the assistant chief of staff of the Defence Forces.

Through loudspeakers in the grounds Fr McDermott told the congregation Garda Jones was “a special hero, a special man”. He recalled he was in the local school on Thursday when Garda Jones’s body had been brought home and as it passed he said teachers cried along with pupils.

Fr McDermott said he had wondered how a man not yet 25 could influence a community so much, a factor which he said was evidenced by so many people and the silence in which they stood. “I have never seen so many people here, I have never seen so many tears,” he said. He paid tribute to Garda Jones’s association with sports clubs, including Kilbride GAA Club and Clondalkin Rugby Club and said when he had played GAA all the pupils in school wanted to play GAA. When Garda Jones had become a guard, “all the pupils wanted to join the gardaí”.

He recalled that Garda Jones had spent the last day of his life helping neighbours, the Walsh family whose home was flooded.

“Then he went down to the bridge with [his sister’s boyfriend] Shane. He saw another man coming who was in danger. They ran to stop him crossing the bridge and Ciaran’s life ended in good deeds,” he said.

Fr McDermott said he had come to the conclusion that Garda Jones had loved life and gone through it with a joyful smile helping others, “a wonderful credit to his community”.

“He died as he lived, doing good,” he said.

Garda Jones’s funeral Mass takes place today at noon.