Two nuns killed in a crash involving a police car in Northern Ireland this week had dedicated their lives to education, a priest told funeral mourners.
Sisters Frances Forde and Marie Duddy died when their vehicle collided with the unmarked car close to the border city of Newry, Co Down.
The Belfast-based nuns, part of the Sisters of Mercy Catholic order, had been making their way to a religious retreat when the incident occurred.
Fr Gary Donegan told the congregation at the Belfast Requiem Mass: "Those of us who have sat wearily through meetings in relation to education, often hear the term 'education from the cradle to the grave'. For Frances and Marie, this was not just a throwaway comment, but a way of life.
“It is not lost on us that these two ladies, who dedicated their lives to education, died on the Feast of St Jerome, synonymous with education.”
The incident happened on the Belfast Road, the main arterial route between Belfast and Newry, near the Derrycraw Road junction north of Newry on Tuesday morning.
The nuns, who were in a silver Renault Clio, had been travelling to Dromantine College Retreat and Conference Centre in Newry.
Three male PSNI officers in an unmarked silver Mitsubishi Shogun were taken to hospital after the incident, and one briefly received treatment for minor cuts and bruising.
The Police Ombudsman’s office, which independently scrutinises the police, is leading the investigation into the circumstances of the incident and sent a specialist mapping and photography team to the scene.
Fr Donegan said Sr Marie was an eternal student and leaves a legacy as an enthusiastic educationalist, expressed in second and third level education, in Belfast and Nigeria.
She was associated with St Joseph's Training College, now St Mary's University College, in Belfast; the School of Education at Queen's University; the board of governors of Mercy Primary and Mercy College, he told mourners at Holy Cross Church. She was, the priest said, "an author and educationalist to the end".
Sr Frances, a veiled lady of traditional dress, devoted her life to the children of Mercy Primary on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast, he added. “As principal, her maxim was ‘be good to the teachers and to the staff’.”
The priest said it was edifying to find people “falling over each other” - ex-pupils and staff - trying to express how important she was in their lives. Following her retirement she immersed herself in the work of Holy Cross parish.
“Her roles too numerous to mention, but foremost was her care of the bereaved of the parish.”
He said the sisters could not have been more different.
“Who would have thought that these two humble and inoffensive servants of God would bring our nation to a standstill due to the sudden and tragic nature of their deaths?”
Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby visited Belfast this week and prayed for the nuns in St Anne's Church of Ireland Cathedral.
Fr Donegan added: “The names of Marie and Frances, prayed aloud in St Anne’s Cathedral. There is going to be some conversation in heaven about that one between the two of them.”
The Sisters were buried in Our Lady’s Acre Cemetery, Greencastle.
Press Association