About 1,000 mourners attended the joint funeral of the two 15-year-old schoolboys killed when they were struck by a train while walking on the railway line near Greysteel, Co Derry, last Friday morning.
As the joint Requiem Mass for Damien McKinney and Paul Gurney was taking place in the Star of the Sea Church, the train from Derry was clearly visible. Paul Gurney was buried in Faughanvale cemetery, close to the grave of his great-grandfather James Moore, the eldest of the Greysteel massacre victims. Loyalist gunmen shot seven people dead in the Rising Sun Bar on October 31st, 1993.
The funerals were led by Paul's parents, Ernie and Fiona Gurney, and his four brothers and by Damien's parents, Geoffrey and Katie McKinney, and their three sons and two daughters.
Many people wept as the two coffins were carried from the Gurney and McKinney homes. Classmates from St Mary's School in Limavady cried in the driving sleet as the coffins, draped with team jerseys from Faughanvale Gaelic Football Club, were carried into the church.
The school and the club were closed yesterday as a mark of respect for the boys. Both Paul and Damien played for the club's under-16 football teams and 36 of their team mates, dressed in the team's colours, formed a guard of honour outside the church.
The local priest, Father John Cargan CC, said the congregation was offering consolation to the boys' families and friends. Their many young friends should not allow "the suddenness and the tragic circumstances of their deaths to kill the sense of adventure and excitement that is so much a part of your youth".