A PRIEST officiating at the funeral of a young man believed to have died as a result of taking a lethal form of ecstasy has condemned drug dealers as “less than human” and “purveyors of grief and doom”.
Mourners at the requiem Mass for Liam Coffey (22) who was found dead along with his friend Michael Coleman in Kinsale, Co Cork, on Sunday, heard that “ordinary, decent people” regard those who supply drugs to young people with “contempt”.
Fr Robert Arthure pleaded with any young person listening to stay away from drugs, telling the ceremony in Affane, outside Cappoquin in Co Waterford, that while the results of Mr Coffey’s postmortem have not yet been published, “all the available evidence” pointed towards drugs.
“But for those who supply drugs, and none of them is here, let one small voice from west Waterford say this morning, to anybody likely to be listening to it or to write it, to express the contempt in which ordinary decent people hold you, the purveyors of grief and ruin,” he said.
Mr Coffey’s parents, Richard and Fionnuala, and twin sisters Tina and Bree, heard Fr Arthure describe him as a “friendly, trusting boy who came from a loving family,” who was looking forward to starting a new course in Cork Institute of Technology.
After the Mass in the Church of St John the Baptist, Mr Coffey was laid to rest in the adjoining cemetery. His friend Michael Coleman was buried on Wednesday after funeral Mass in Abbeyside, Dungarvan.