‘Make real friends not artificial ones,’ Elisha’s Mass told
‘Only route she felt available to her’
THE priest at the funeral of Elisha Gault, whose body was found on Sunday, has urged teenagers to spend less time on their smartphones and form ‘real’ friendships, saying, ‘Your friends on Facebook are artificial friends.’
Elisha Gault, 14, was buried yesterday in Piltown, Co. Kilkenny, following funeral Mass at the Church of the Assumption where she had made her First Communion and Confirmation in years gone by.
Her heartbroken parents Gráinne Gault and Cameron Moore helped carry the teenager’s coffin into the church for the Mass, attended by hundreds of people, including many of similar age to the much-loved young girl, and on its final journey afterwards to the graveyard across the road. Elisha’s sisters Bhrianna, Chloe-Nicole and Saoirse were also comforted by family members and friends.
Elisha’s body was found in the river Suir on Sunday evening by search and rescue helicopter crew members taking part in the multi-agency operation which had got under way more than a week earlier when she was reported missing by her family.
She was last seen alive on Dillon Bridge in Carrick-on-Suir on St Patrick’s night.
Her mother has since described her daughter as ‘troubled’ and said she struggled with mental health issues which she battled to overcome.
Yesterday, Fr Paschal Moore, chief celebrant at the funeral Mass, told mourners that Elisha had masked her inner turmoil but inside felt ‘trapped’.
And he urged her schoolmates to form ‘real’ friends whom they can open up to in times of trouble. He said: ‘Elisha’s outward appearance and behaviour masked an air of hopelessness within. She felt trapped, she was a prisoner of her feelings and her thoughts which weighed heavily on her and she was in turmoil, a turmoil we can never appreciate or understand.
‘Elisha, she took the only route she felt she could take. Not the right route, not the right choice, but it was the only route that she felt she could take. Her actions have left her family, her community, her schoolfriends devastated and completely, utterly upset and confused. We pray that she is at peace today.
‘We all have our worries, our stresses and our anxieties.
‘The problem arises when our anxiety takes over every part of our lives. Today, boys and girls, I encourage you to form a support network... I would encourage you also to turn off your iPhone every now and again.
‘Facebook is wonderful at times and people boast about how many friends they have on Facebook, but your friends on Facebook are artificial friends. You need real people around you.’
As her remains left her home on New Street in Carrick yesterday morning, hundreds lined the streets of the town in silence as the cortege made its way to Dillon Bridge. There, family members and many friends dropped white flowers into the river in memory of Elisha before the funeral moved on to Piltown. Inside the packed church, symbols of the schoolgirl’s life were brought to the altar, including a book and a phone as well as a cross and a copy of the Bible.
Fr Moore described Elisha as a ‘beautiful young girl’.
The parish priest told mourners: ‘Every funeral is sad. Every departure brings its sorrows but nothing can compare to the grief, the searing grief, that Elisha’s family are now experiencing.
‘This morning we want to really and truly empathise with this family, the Gault and Moore family, because they have been robbed of the company of their loving daughter. There is an emptiness, a void that no-one can fill this morning for them.’
He urged her schoolmates from Comeragh College to seek help, directing them to a leaflet, My Support Network, available in the church.