Former MEP Mick Wallace has paid tribute to his son Joseph who died from a brain tumour earlier this week at the age of 30.
Speaking at his son’s funeral service at the Victorian Chapel in Mount Jerome, Dublin, Mr Wallace recalled their shared passion for football.
They had intended to go to the European Championships this week and were scheduled to attend the round-of-16 game between Italy and Switzerland in Berlin which coincided with the timing of the funeral.
Joseph Barry Wallace died on Thursday at Tallaght University Hospital. He had been diagnosed with a brain tumour last year and was managing it, but he became unwell while attending the Beyond the Pale festival in Glendalough, Co Wicklow last weekend.
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Many tributes were paid to Joseph during the humanist service. His father said the fact that Patricia (Joseph’s mother) and Joseph’s siblings, Gráinne, Sasha and Fionn, all had different memories of him showed how much he impacted other people.
“It’s such an incredible tribute to him that he had different relationship with the five of us,” he said.
“There were so many strings to his bow, so many of them are lasting memories for me. We will all use our memories of Joseph to sustain us in the days and years ahead.”
Mr Wallace recalled how his son had been a footballer with Wexford Youths, the club he founded in 2007 and which is now in the First Division as Wexford FC.
“We went to a lot of football together, we followed Italia all over the planet, we went to a lot of football in Italy,” he said.
Joseph told his father that after he lost his seat in the European elections earlier this month, they would have more time to attend matches together especially in Italy where they attended the Curva (ultra sections) of Italian clubs, especially Torino.
“The atmosphere was always amazing, we loved it so much together,” Mr Wallace said.
As a family they would never get over the death of Joseph, but he hoped that the family would take comfort from the support of others.
“We have no illusions, we are not going to say that we are going to recover from this loss because we won’t,” he told mourners.
“We are not going to say we are going to get over his loss because we won’t, but we have to cope and cope we will. Where we get the strength to do it, I don’t know but we will get it somewhere.”
Many of the mourners wore pink shirts which are the colours of Wexford FC.
Joseph Wallace was cremated afterwards in the crematorium at Mount Jerome.
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