A coffin carrying the body of a Belmullet man for his funeral in Co Mayo was left in the hold of a Ryanair flight to Knock and flown back to Stansted in England.
When the mistake was realised, the coffin was returned on a Ryanair flight to Shannon airport, Co Clare. This forced the cancellation of funeral ceremonies that evening.
The body of Christopher Dunleavy (50), who was from Belmullet, was flown from Stansted near London to Knock airport to be met by his 81-year-old mother and other family members.
Also at the airport were undertakers from Belmullet. The undertakers made their way to the cargo entrance where they were told there was no coffin on board the flight.
After much confusion, it emerged that the cargo hold at the back of the aircraft had not been opened and the flight had returned to Stansted in the meantime.
A family member said everybody had been very upset by the incident.
Ryanair refused to return to Knock that evening, and the body was flown to Shannon, arriving eventually after 9pm on March 7th. This meant that the evening service at the family's local church had to be cancelled.
Mr Dunleavy was brought to the north Mayo town in the early hours of Tuesday morning for the funeral Mass later that day.
Management at Knock airport admitted its mistake and expressed sympathies and apologies to the family.
"Due to an error by the ground handling crew, the remains were not taken from the aircraft," a spokesman said. "We met with the family and did everything we could to rectify the situation and distress for them.
"We were aware that the family wanted to have the remains in Ireland that evening and with the assistance of Ryanair we arranged to have them brought to Shannon. We arranged for the funeral undertaker to go to Shannon," he said.
A Ryanair spokeswoman said that coffins were always carried free on their flights, and this applied to the flights that day.