"Silence is the best response to another's grief - a silence that unites heart to heart. Love spoken in silence is the way into the void . . . Grief will yield to peace in time."
Admitting to being "lost for words" in his attempt to convey the depth of "sympathy, regret and sorrow" on the part of the people of Galway, Father John O'Reilly of St Mary's Church on the Claddagh drew on a meditation yesterday at the heartbreaking funeral ceremony of a mother and her two daughters.
All morning hundreds of people had filed into the church. The three coffins - two white - were bedecked with flowers. They bore the remains of Mrs Catherine Palmer and her daughters, Jennifer (8) and Louisa (6), who had died after their car plunged off a pier into Kinvarra Bay, south Galway, last Sunday. The truth of that meditation on grief, by the late Cardinal Basil Hume, had been brought home to him at the removal ceremony at University College Hospital, Galway, on Tuesday night, Father O'Reilly said. Large numbers of people had passed through the hospital in silence before the coffins were walked to the church.
"It was not an empty silence, but a silence that was deeply moving," Father O'Reilly said. Jennifer Palmer had been very concerned about the flooding in Mozambique, Father O'Reilly said. The large congregation was asked to contribute to a special collection for the African state.
Chief mourners at the funeral were Mrs Palmer's husband, Mr Roy Palmer, her parents, Mr John and Mrs Lily O'Sullivan, and members of the O'Sullivan and Palmer families.
Among the many sympathisers were school friends of the two girls from Scoil Iognaid in Galway. Mr John Bosco O'Sullivan, Mrs Palmer's brother, paid tribute to the "incredible generosity" of family friends and neighbours and expressed gratitude for the "outpouring of love and sympathy". He thanked the Garda Siochana and emergency services who had assisted on Sunday, and the hospital casualty staff. The Bishop of Galway, Dr James McLoughlin was among the 16 priests concelebrating the funeral Mass.
Afterwards, Mr Palmer and the O'Sullivans linked arms as they followed the cortege to Rahoon cemetery. Mother and daughters were buried with the girls' favourite teddies in one grave - Mrs Palmer in the centre and her children on either side.
