Two drowned boys buried in Co Sligo

Two Co Sligo villages came to a standstill last night for the removal ceremonies of two of the three teenage boys who drowned while wading at Strandhill beach last Sunday.

Hundreds of people, many in tears, lined the route and followed the cortege on foot the three miles from the home of Bobby Taylor to the village church of St Patrick's. Bobby would have celebrated his 17th birthday yesterday.

An hour later the emotional ritual was repeated when many among those same hundreds followed another cortege, that of Michael Higgins (17), of Culfadda, Cloonloo, near Ballymote to the Church of the Most Holy Rosary at Culfadda, about five miles from Gurteen. The third boy, 18-yearold Tommy Coyle will be buried tomorrow with the removal tonight.

A fourth teenager, Lawrence Cooke, who was rescued, left the intensive care unit for a general ward in Sligo General Hospital yesterday where his condition was described as stable.

Students from Colaiste Mhuire in Ballymote, where the two boys were Leaving Certificate students, formed guards of honour with members of the local GAA club Eastern Harps, for which the boys played.

The President, Mrs McAleese, who spoke yesterday to the Gurteen parish priest, Father John Doherty, sent a message of sympathy to the families. The Taoiseach, Mr Ahern, was represented by his aide-de-camp, Capt Michael Kiernan.

Shops and pubs in the prosperous village closed before the ceremony, an action followed later in Culfadda, five miles away.

The church bells tolled as the cortege wound its way into the village and several teenagers cried as the flower draped hearse approached.

The Bishop of Achonry, Dr Thomas Flynn, paid tribute to the three boys at Bobby's removal ceremony, which was led by Father Doherty and joined by priests from parishes in the area.

Bishop Flynn told the congregation, many of whom had to stand outside the small church in the centre of the village, that it was a tragic day for everyone. Extending his sympathy to the families he also said he hoped that "Lawrence Cooke will be fully well and back with his family in the very near future".

Addressing Bobby's parents, Robert and Margaret, his brothers Paul and Tony and his sister Karen, Dr Flynn said "we can never fully understand the pain and grief you are suffering at this time but we want to help you share that loss by our being here. Death is always a sad experience with a young person like Bobby dying without warning. It is only human to ask why. Why did God let this happen? We may never know the answer," he said, but he added that God was always with the community in its suffering.

Dr Flynn said the three boys were "friends and just ready to step into the adult world, well prepared for life". It was a huge blow to the parishes of Gurteen and Keash, of which Culfadda was an outchurch. The parish and county football teams would miss their already proven talents at time when the community held out so much hope.

An hour later at the church in Culfadda the curate Father John Geelan expressed the shock and sympathy of the community to Michael's parents Alfie and Anne, his sister Aileen, and brothers Padraig and Cyril. There was nothing he could say to a family suffering that level of grief but the Christian tradition points out that death was part of life, to be accepted in all its forms.

The three boys' friends had been traumatised by their deaths. For young people everything in life was negotiable, whether it was about being allowed to go to a disco or studying at school. "But here they are presented with the starkness of death itself and you don't bargain with death." The only consolation was the words of St Paul, that the Christian message gave peace which the world alone could not give.