Shane Michael Skeffington (20) and his younger brother Brandon (9) were buddies who played football together, mourners at their funeral heard today.
As they were laid to rest side by side, Fr John Glynn parish priest of Banada, told a community still reeling from the shock of their deaths that no one knew what happened.
“What happened is that Brandon and Shane Michael died”, he told hundreds of people who gathered in Tourlestrane Church today.
“And Shane Michael and Brandon’s family are all very sad. That is what happened and really we do not know any more.”
The community’s grief and bewilderment was palpable as the two coffins, one slightly larger than the other, were carried into the church. Identical white wreaths decorated with a blue ribbon were placed on each coffin, a photograph of each boy on his coffin.
A football and a transformer toy, a favourite of the nine-year-old, were carried to the altar.
The brothers' parents, Carmel and Shane Snr, parents and four grandparents held each for comfort .
When they left the Church Carmel Skeffington was inconsolable as she stayed close to the two hearses.
Clinging to a photograph of the boys together she stroked each coffin in turn.
Her husband Shane hugged her tightly as their parents and extended family stood vigil with them.
Fr Glynn had told the parents that words were difficult for everyone.
“It is hard to imagine how you feel,” he conceded. “It is not something any of us want to feel. Our hearts go out to you”.
The priest said he was conscious of the great sadness not just of family members and neighbours but of the boys’ friends, including the young children in Brandon’s class.
Many of them were there in their school uniform.
Fr Glynn pointed out that while life would go on for other people it has been cruelly stalled for a 20-year-old and a nine-year-old who were not around to see tractors whizzing around the country lanes in the sunshine or to wonder, like their neighbours, how the Sligo GAA team would fare against Cork tomorrow.
The boys had been great friends, he stressed. They played football together and the older boy would bring Brandon for journeys in the car. “I don’t know if he was a good driver” he remarked joking that there were a lot of cars at the back of the house and “and I don’t know if that is a good sign”.
Many people sobbed in the church as Fr Flynn described Brandon as a little boy full of life who in his three years at Banada national school had made a big impression.
He was a boy whose “bright sparkling blue eyes and big smile” would see him through any scrapes, the priest pointed out.
A big Simpson fan, he had been known to read his favourite comic at class when he should have been at something else but he was a child who would be dearly missed by his teachers and his friends, Fr Glynn said.
The priest stressed that while people would wonder and speculate and read reports about what happened in the Skeffington home last Sunday, the only certainty was that the boys were dead and they had left a huge sadness.
The brothers were brought on one final journey together, the two hearses followed by hundreds of cars through the streets of Tubbercurry, their former home town, before they were laid to rest in nearby Rhue cemetery.
