‘We’ll be back together’
Teary tributes paid to young mother found dead in home
A YOUNG mother and aspiring model who was stabbed to death at her home was laid to rest yesterday, with her heartbroken younger brother paying a touching tribute to her.
In a personal poem read by a friend at her funeral in Donegal, Christopher described his sister Jasmine McMonagle as a ‘flower’ who had a ‘cheeky smile that would stretch for miles’.
With a nod to her love of KFC, he concluded by saying ‘we will be back together again’ and ‘I love you so much, forever and ever’.
Hundreds turned out to bid farewell to Ms McMonagle, 28, who was found dead at her home in Killygordon in the early hours of Friday last, a home she shared with her two young daughters, Skye, aged seven, and Luna, one.
Jasmine, who was described as a caring person who valued her family and had a special relationship with her children, was buried next to her grandmother Rose.
Fr Oliver Crilly said it was fitting that Jasmine would now be laid to rest alongside her grandmother, whom she loved so much.
When her grandmother passed away, Jasmine, who was just 17, got a tattoo with the words ‘Gran Rose’ on it to remember her by.
She also wrote a poem the day her grandmother died which was read out at the end of her own funeral Mass in St Mary’s Church, Castlefinn, which her young daughters didn’t appear to be present at.
Fr Crilly said death was difficult at any time but at this time and in such circumstances were even more difficult.
He said Jasmine ‘loved to give, she spoilt her wee brother Christopher when he was young and even now when he was 22’.
The priest added that Jasmine, who had done some modelling, always presented herself well. ‘She didn’t just follow the fashions. She loved to be different, to be herself,’ he said.
Fr Crilly said family was very important to Jasmine and her loved ones ‘have been buoyed up by the support and response of the local community’.
Close family left mourning Jasmine’s death include her mother Jacqueline, sister Jenna, brother Christopher and her daughters.
The beautiful young mother had left the area dreaming of becoming a model and an actress before settling in Killygordon in east Donegal where she made a home with her two little girls.
But it was here where those dreams ended abruptly when she was stabbed to death in the early hours of Friday morning last. Ms McMonagle’s partner Richard Burke, 27, has been charged with her murder and is in custody.