Two families were united in their grief as separate ceremonies marked the shocking and untimely deaths of two very close friends
THE FUNERALS of close friends, Marion Graham and Cathy Dinsmore, who were murdered together in Turkey last week, took place within a few hours of each other yesterday in Co Down.
The women, both 53, were stabbed to death near the west coast city of Izmir where they were on an extended holiday with Ms Graham’s 15-year-old daughter, Shannon. Shannon’s Turkish boyfriend, Recep Cetin, has reportedly confessed to the killings.
Yesterday, at 11am – timed to facilitate those also wishing to attend Cathy Dinsmore’s funeral – Shannon appeared composed, stroking the lid of her mother’s coffin, as she and her three sisters, Karen, Lorraine and Martina, and brother David, led mourners into St Mary’s Chapel in Newry for the first of the funerals.
In his homily, Fr John Byrne CC, told a congregation of about 200, that “both families are united in their grief and it is natural that they have so many questions but so few answers”.
Marion “was still young and had much more to give”, he said. She would be remembered as “a unique individual . . . a loving mother and great friend”, who “lived her life to the full and enjoyed the company of friends and neighbours.
“By all accounts, she was a great person for walking and regularly would be seen out walking on the Warrenpoint Road stopping to talk to those she knew . . .
“She is remembered too for the time she gave to childminding, helping out neighbours and friends.”
The offertory gifts included a family photograph, brought up by Shannon, as well as a symbol of “Marion’s motherhood”, a gift-wrapped pack of cosmetics with a large pink bow, presented by Éamon, her grandson.
Family members offered prayers for the Dinsmore family and for all those who, in Lorraine’s words, helped to “bring mammy home” – the Garda, the PSNI, the Department of Foreign Affairs and the Irish Embassy.
To the strains of Amazing Grace, Marion Graham's five children took their positions around her coffin as it was wheeled from the church for burial in the adjoining cemetery.
Less than two hours later, many of the same family followed Ms Dinsmore’s coffin into St Peter’s Church, Warrenpoint, 11km away, where Canon John Kearney expressed the Dinsmore family’s particular appreciation that the family of Marion Graham had joined them “in the midst of their own sorrow”.
Here too, Canon Kearney spoke eloquently about questions without answers, “questions that jump out at us in every waking hour, questions that lie in wait for us and tumble out of our minds at the most unexpected moments, regrets that haunt us with the litany of ‘If onlys’ that make us want to play back the tape of Cathy’s life and death so that we could write a different script for her”.
In a sense, he said, “we are paralysed . . . suspended in disbelief . . . It is no wonder that we are devastated at this time, our grief is enormous. What are we to do, how are we to cope? Only our faith in God can sustain us . . .”
Cathy was a “gentle and kind woman and these qualities make the tragedy of her life so difficult to get over”, he said. She was also religious. Among the belongings packed up by her family preparing to take her body home from Turkey was a memoriam card of her late mother Pauline, who will be 10 years dead in a few days.
The offertory gifts included her mother’s memoriam card along with her own rosary beads, as well as a sepia-tinted photograph of her parents.
The prayers of the faithful included a prayer “for the consolation of the Graham family” and, at the sign of peace, Dinsmore family members reached out to Ms Graham’s children.
Towards the end, after sweetly rendered traditional hymns such as There is a Place(sung at both funerals), Hail Queen of Heavenand Queen of Ireland, Ms Dinsmore's brother George gave a short reflection and her niece Ruby recited Memories from the Heart.
On behalf of the family, Canon Kearney thanked the Irish Ambassador and Irish consulate in Turkey and the Irish people living in Turkey who supported them when family members travelled there.
“The family are also deeply grateful to the Turkish authorities for their care, their sympathy and their support and for their prayers in all their churches and in their mosques. All of them have helped more than they will ever realise. They also want to thank the Garda Síochána and the PSNI for the caring way in which they undertook their duties.”
Mourners then accompanied the coffin on foot to St Peter’s Cemetery nearby, where Ms Dinsmore was laid to rest alongside her mother and father and infant sister.
Politicians attending the funerals included Sinn Féin’s Newry and Armagh MP Conor Murphy, as well as South Down MP and SDLP leader Margaret Ritchie.