EMOTIONAL SCENES AT LOUGH EGISH FUNERAL – MORE THAN 1,000 MOURNERS AT YOUNG BOY’S BURIAL

By Patsy McArdle

THERE were emotional scenes in the church and cemetery for the funeral last Friday, which included a “Mass of the Angels,” for a three-and-a-half-years-old boy and only son of a popular Mid-Monaghan family who was fatally injured in a tragic road accident near Carrickmacross, earlier in the week.

Indeed the entire community turned out in force in what could be truly termed as a tidal wave of sympathy for the bereaved parents of little Eoin Joseph O’Neill, son of Derek and Rose O’Neill, Cortaghart, Shantonagh.

More than a thousand people packed the Sacred Heart Church and adjacent cemetery at Lough Egish for the funeral which epitomized the huge sense of family heartbreak felt throughout the entire community over the tragedy.

The youngster was fatally injured on Bank Holiday Monday last when a car driven by his mother was involved in a head-on collision with another car driven by an American woman at Annamarron on the Dublin/Derry N2 near Carrickmacross.

The US woman was later charged and has been remanded on bail at Carrickmacross Court on a charge of dangerous driving, causing the boy’s death.

Mrs O’Neill sustained severe injuries in the crash and was taken by air-ambulance to Tallagh Hospital, Dublin.

The local parish priest, Very Reverend Fr. Shane McCaughey, was assisted at ..