Two heartbroken families and one extended community were united in grief on Friday as the funerals of two teenage friends killed in a car crash took place in Co Donegal.
Alana Harkin and Thomas Gallagher, both 18, had been part of a group returning from working at Simpson's Bar and Restaurant in Carndonagh in the early hours of Monday morning.
What should have been a routine journey home ended in tragedy when the car they were travelling in left the road and ploughed into a wooded area at Terrawee, Gleneely, at around 12.30am.
Both Alana and Thomas were killed while another friend, a young man in his late teens, was rushed to hospital and treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
The outpouring of grief building up to the funerals has been palpable on the Inishowen Peninsula, which has sadly become accustomed to such road tragedies.
Many in these close-knit villages and small towns knew both Alana and Thomas with many attending both funerals which took place at separate times.
The first funeral was that of Alana at St Mary's Church in Bocan, Culdaff. Hundreds of mourners lined both sides of the road outside the church for up to an hour before the funeral.
Fr James McGonagle told the funeral that Alana, in her short 18 years on earth, certainly made her mark.
“If we could see Alana’s life not as a life interrupted but rather as a life completed it might help us to gain strength for the future, because we all do have a future, there is still a life to be lived,” he told the congregation.
The best word to describe Alana, Fr McGonagle said, was “magnetism”.
“Everyone was drawn towards her, young and old,” he said.
“She has been blessed with so many loving and faithful friends, in the community, at school and her workplace at Simpsons.
“She was a live wire, a pocket dynamo, a ball of fire, a prankster.”
On her tragic passing, Fr McGonagle said that the death of a loved one, especially the accidental death of an 18-year-old, is very hard to take. “Especially when that young person had a world at her feet with all kinds of dreams and hope for the future.”
He acknowledged the mixture of emotions that swamp the grieving community following Monday’s tragedy.
Speaking to her parents and siblings, he said: “We are all with you, not just today, but also in the days ahead. There will be dark days. The most important source of comfort for us is our faith.”
The congregation also prayed for Alana and Thomas’ friend Patrick, who survived the collision and is believed to be making good progress in his recovery.
After her funeral, Alana was laid to rest in the adjoining cemetery.
Greencastle funeral
Many mourners then made their way across the peninsula on the 18-kilometre journey to St Mary's Church in Ballybrack near Greencastle, to pay their final respects to Thomas.
Along the way they passed by the very place where the friends perished at Gleneely on Monday morning, a row of flowers marking the tragic spot.
Once again hundreds of mourners including pupils from Moville Community College lined the route to Thomas' final resting place at St Mary's Church.
Inside, the mourners were led by Thomas' mother Helen, his dad Dominick, brothers Roán, Dominick, Emmet and his sister Emily.
Fr Eddie Gallagher told mourners that Helen and Dominick wanted Thomas' funeral to be a celebration of his life.
He said: "Our gathering in tragic circumstances reminds us of the preciousness of human life and how things can change so drastically for us in the blink of an eye.
"In the first hour of Monday, life changed and will never be the same for Thomas and Alana’s families."
He said that, quite simply, everyone at his funeral mass wanted to remember Thomas at his best.
Fr Gallagher added: “He packed a lot into 18 years of life. He was looking after everyone else from the moment he was born. He was protective of you all. When he was told he was having a baby sister, he literally jumped for joy. He was so happy that his family felt so complete and he happily walked Emily around the estate in a pram.
“Thomas understood how important it is to life each day as a new gift from God."
Among the gifts and symbols of Thomas' life were his Versace aftershave, his Ellesse coat, a frying pan and eggs, his working boots and clothing, a framed picture from his formal, a badge from a vintage tractor and a horse-riding cap.
Also among the gifts were a hand-carved wooden heart with pictures of Thomas and Aoife, his girlfriend of 18 months.
A poem chosen by Thomas' heartbroken father Dominick and read by a friend had mourners in tears while a closing song from Thomas' classmates at Moville Community College was met with a spontaneous round of applause.
Outside the funeral mass, hundreds of mourners waited in the cold chill of the November air as Thomas was led to the adjoining cemetery for burial.
