The funeral took place yesterday of a 17-year-old Limerick girl whose brother was due to make his First Holy Communion on Sunday.
Ms Tanya Nunan, of Sarsfield Gardens, Moyross, was in the care of the Mid-Western Health Board and was due back at the board's care-centre in O'Briensbridge at 7 p.m. last Sunday. Instead, she was killed instantly by a hit-and-run driver in a stolen car at Bengal Terrace over four hours later. The health board had earlier informed gardaí that she had failed to return to the centre.
Described as an artistic girl, her photo, a Bible and a sample of her artwork were on her coffin in Corpus Christi Church in Moyross. Father John O'Shea, Moyross parish priest, speaking at the concelebrated requiem Mass, said: "There are a lot of people today asking questions about Tanya's death and the way she died. For no one, but no one, deserves to die the way Tanya Nunan died.
"To have your life ended so suddenly, to have your family confronted with such an enormous tragedy in the death of their eldest child, makes us cry out: 'why, why, why?'
"The anger and frustration that people experience in their grief cannot be easily explained away. For such tragedies leave a huge mark on families and on a community and on her friends. But the music chosen by you in Celine Dion's My Heart Will Go On for Tanya's funeral is a sign that you will not forget Tanya and that life is eternal.
"It is too soon to die at 17 and it seems so pointless. But sudden death brings sudden mercy and Tanya may have been more ready in heart and in hope to meet her Creator than we could ever imagine."
She is survived by her mother, Sharon, and father, Paul, a GAA referee, and brothers Brian, John Paul and Shane. Burial took place to Mount St Oliver Cemetery.
Two teenage girls and a boy were charged in connection with the fatal incident and allowing themselves to be carried in a stolen car.