The picturesque village of Blackrock on the shores of Louth’s Dundalk Bay came to a standstill as Garda Tony Golden made the journey to his final resting place yesterday.
A spectacular guard of honour comprising the majority of the estimated 4,000 Garda members present lined the streets as the hearse took the dead man's remains from his home off Sandy Lane to St Oliver Plunkett's Church less than a kilometre away.
When the funeral service was completed, the cortege made the journey back through the town again; the dead man’s coffin draped in the Tricolour with his Garda cap and gloves on top.
Silence fell in the village, where all businesses were closed, as the cortege paused outside the house Garda Golden shared with his wife, Nicola, and three young children, Alex, Lucy and Andrew.
Garda Golden’s body was then taken for burial at nearby St Paul’s in Heynestown.
The 36-year-old former Mayo hurler was shot dead during a domestic abuse callout to a house near Omeath village in Louth last Sunday.
"The pain is real for his heartbroken wife, Nicola, the adored dad of Lucy, Alex and Andrew, parents Breege and David, brothers David, Kenneth, Patrick and Seán and his sister Mary," Fr Pádraig Keenan, parish priest of Haggardstown and Blackrock, said at the funeral Mass.
He told the 300-strong invited congregation crammed into the tiny church for the service broadcast live to the thousands in the streets that “Tony quietly let his light shine in so many ways” through his life in “a very humble” way. “Amidst our sadness may we be thankful for the charisma of his beautiful but too short life.”
Representatives from all arms of the State were present. Dignitaries included President Michael D Higgins and wife Sabina, Taoiseach Enda Kenny, Tánaiste Joan Burton, Minister for Justice Frances Fitzgerald, almost every senior Garda officer, including Garda Commissioner Nóirín O'Sullivan, and senior personnel from the Defence Forces, the Customs Service and a PSNI group led by Chief Constable George Hamilton.
Outside, many of the dead man’s colleagues wept, especially as the Garda choir sang.
