Andrew Hanlon the 20-year-old Irishman shot dead by a police officer in the USA on July 1st, was a gentle, thoughtful, young man whose death had left family and friends on both sides of the Atlantic broken hearted, Mr Hanlon’s funeral mass was told today.
Speaking at the requiem mass in Saggart, Co Dublin, Mr Hanlon's step-father Justin Carroll said the last three weeks since the killing had been "a nightmare".
Mr Carroll said he and Mr Hanlon's mother Dorethea had travelled to Silverton and found that community "every bit as heartbroken as we are here", following the shooting.
Mr Hanlon was shot, allegedly seven times by a police officer who was responding to reports of an intruder at a house near that of Mr O’Hanlon’s sister Melanie. Friends and family claim Mr O’Hanlon was looking for his sister’s house at the time of the shooting.
In his eulogy Mr Carroll said Mr Hanlon had obviously touched people’s lives in Silverton as much as at home in Ireland. “People, strangers were crying their hearts out. He was loved as much there as here”, he said. Mr Carroll paid tribute to “a son, a grandson, a nephew who was just trying to spread his wings”, and a young man who was “genuine and kind, almost niave”.
Principal mourners at the requiem mass conducted by local curate Fr Michael Shorthall included Mr Hanlon’s mother Dorothea, his sisters Mary Kate and Danielle, and bother Eamon. Fr Shorthall also remembered Mr Hanlon’s sister Melanie in the United States and the deceased’s father, the late Eamon Hanlon.
