Crowds thronged the 150-year-old St Joseph's Church in Miltown Malbay, Co Clare, last night for the removal of one of the three men killed in a car crash in Co Galway on Monday.
Mr Michael Hynes (52), owner of a supermarket and butcher's shop at Mullagh Road, died when the car he was driving was in a head-on collision with another car on the main Galway-Ennis Road, near Kilcolgan.
His widow, Anne, who teaches at Kilkee Community College, has been widowed for the second time as a result of the accident: her first husband, Mr Paddy Healy, died 14 years ago from cancer.
Yesterday, Mr Gerard Kelly, a brother-in-law of Mrs Hynes, contacted the Pat Kenny Show on RTE to comment on the fact that while there was much mention of the two youths who died in the crash there had been scant mention of its other victim. "While we have the deepest sympathy for the families of the two boys who died, we feel that Mr Hynes in his own right deserves mention and that was the feeling throughout Miltown Malbay," Mr Kelly, a school teacher at Cooraclare, told The Irish Times before last night's removal. The two youths who died in the other car were Mr Darren O'Connor (18), son of golfer Christy O'Connor Jnr, and Mr David Quinn (18), son of Limerick traditional musician Gus Quinn.
Mr Hynes is also survived by his son, Garret (11), daughter, Edel (8), and stepchildren, Michael (22) and Aoife (18) and by two brothers and a sister.
Mr Hynes, who was returning from Galway when he died, was a member of a family which has suffered much tragedy already. Mr Martin Matthews, husband of Mr Hynes's only sister Mary, was killed two years ago when the van he was driving overturned at Inagh on the Lahinch to Ennis road. In 1985, his first cousin, Mr John Marrinan (22), a noted Gaelic footballer, was killed when, having been thrown from his car after a collision on the Kilkee road, he was run over by a car coming behind.
Mr Hynes will be buried today in Ballard Cemetery after 11 o'clock Mass.