For what seemed like the first time since the funerals began, the sun shone in Creeslough on Thursday morning.
It shone over the people of the village as they stood by the roadside in their quiet huddles, awaiting the arrival of the hearse bearing the remains of Martina Martin, the mother-of-four who was at work in the local shop last Friday when a devastating explosion destroyed the complex housing apartments and the Applegreen service station.
It shone over the silence which was broken only by the low hum of the engine belonging to the garda motorcycle escort, the sound that in recent days Creeslough has come to recognise as heralding the arrival of yet another hearse.
And it shone over her family – her husband Derek and their children Seán, Neil, Oisín and Gráinne, who led the mourners as they followed the coffin from their home to the church; father in the middle, daughter and younger son on either side, flanked by the two eldest boys in their Defence Forces dress uniforms.
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Their fellow soldiers from Finner camp in Ballyshannon formed a guard of honour as the hearse drew up. Students from Mulroy College in Milford - where her younger children were pupils - and colleagues who worked alongside her in the shop waited to perform the same tribute on the way into the church.
The white of her sons’ gloves gleamed against the dark wood as the three young men carried the coffin, while her husband stayed with their daughter, an arm around her in comfort as they followed Martina into St Michael’s Church.
Inside, Gráinne brought a family picture of the children, “her pride and joy”, to the altar. Other symbols of her life included items representing her love of Harry Potter, her coffee cup – rarely out of her hand, the priest said, and a box of Black Magic to show her fondness for dark chocolate.
Martina, the parish priest Fr John Joe Duffy said in his homily, “had an abundance of love”. She was a “mother hen” and, for her children, the “ultimate mammy bear” who “stuck up for you through thick and thin”.
“Real love, for her, was a way of life,” he said. “She protected you and she kept you safe and taught you right from wrong. She was preparing you for life.
“She is very proud of each one of the four of you. She will continue to be proud of each of you and your achievements,” the priest went on. “You were blessed to have the best mother who loved you so dearly and cared for you so much. She believed in you and wanted you to be happy.”
He recalled her “cheeky, mischievous smile which flowed out to you when you met her”. Known as Tina, she was a “straight talker” who was “the life and soul of any night out”, who “loved her music” and always put others first.
Fr Duffy paid tribute to Martina’s central role in the community and told of how she had helped to care for people during the Covid-19 pandemic when the shop was the only premises in the village that remained open.
She was, he said, “a front-line person in this community” who “loved the people of this community, and we loved her”.
“She was very special to us,” he said. “If you were having a bad day, her quick wit would lift you up.”
Martina looked after customers, especially when it came to chocolate; if a customer came to the till with a bar and there was a larger one on offer for the same price, she would make sure they got the bargain, Fr Duffy said.
Every time he went into the shop, he said, there was Martina’s “friendly face … you met her, and she became your friend”.
“She was so well-liked, so well-loved. You don’t need me to tell you that,” he said to mourners.
On Thursday, they repaid that love. As Leonard Cohen’s Hallelujah echoed from the church, her coffin was carried out and placed in the hearse to be taken to Co Cavan for cremation, as hundreds stood waiting their turn to give their condolences to her family.
Among them was President Michael D Higgins, who held a lengthy conversation with Mr Martin. Standing to attention were members of the emergency services and, sitting quietly wearing their hi-vis bibs, the rescue dogs who had helped search the rubble for survivors following the explosion.
This is how it is now in Creeslough - a village, which since Tuesday, has had to become used to daily funerals. As Martina’s coffin departed, people were preparing in nearby Ramelton to bury another of the victims, 14-year-old Leona Harper.
“I don’t remember what morning it is now,” Fr Duffy told mourners during the Requiem Mass. All he remembered was that before the first funeral, he had gone with gardaí to the scene of the tragedy, to the spot where flowers have been laid, and they prayed.
He urged people to avail of counselling services which have been put in place, saying he intended to do so himself today. It was, he said, the “support between families” and “strength, determination, resolve” which had enabled to them to “keep going each day, a strengthened community”.
Creeslough, he said, was a small village. “Now it is a word for determination, love, togetherness.”
As the Mass ended, he said Martina had asked God “to send us the beautiful sun this morning” to let us know she was in His “warm embrace”.
Even in the midst of such grief, there is hope; that sun, he said, “will shine for you all again”.
