BRING THEM HOME
Sister’s poignant plea to God for Dara Fitzpatrick’s missing crew: You owe us one, we are calling it in...
THE sister of tragic Coast Guard Captain Dara Fitzpatrick yesterday called on God to return to their families the missing crew of tragic Rescue 116 which crashed earlier this week.
In a deeply moving tribute at her sister Dara’s funeral, Niamh said that God ‘owed them’, and as a family, the Fitzpatricks were now ‘calling in’ the favour.
‘Bring them home,’ Niamh said, while
fighting back tears. ‘Just please bring them home. Through our grief, our hearts are with the crew of Rescue 116 – Ciarán Smith, Paul Ormsby and Mark Duffy.’
Over 1,200 mourners – including President Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Enda Kenny – gathered at St Patrick’s Church in Glencullen to pay their last respects to Capt. Fitzpatrick, or Flora, as the mother was known to her family.
She died when Coast Guard rescue helicopter 116 crashed off the Mayo coast in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Yesterday, the cortege arrived at the church in Glencullen, Co. Dublin, at 11am and was met by a guard of honour from the Coast Guard and other rescue services.
Dara Fitzpatrick’s parents, four siblings, her young son Fionn, and other family members accompanied the coffin into the church. Leading figures from public life also paid their respects. President Higgins and Mr Kenny were joined by Transport Minister Shane Ross and Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin.
Captain Fitzpatrick’s sister Niamh managed to draw laughter from the congregation when she recalled sibling contests. She also revealed that she’d had to allow bursts of ‘great anger’ pass in recent days in order to remember her sister’s life and legacy.
‘I was so angry,’ she said yesterday. ‘I wanted to kick, I wanted to scream, I wanted to yell. I was so mad and just so angry at God. How could he be so greedy? He has Dara forever and we had her for 45 years and Fionn had her for three. Mother’s Day is next Sunday and he only had her for three years. It was just so wrong.
‘Before we knew that it had been Dara’s body that had been recovered, I went up to her room. Her night clothes were there and Kanga [a childhood soft toy]. Her bed was just thrown open – it was obvious she was in bed, got the call to go out. And when I pulled back the cover to lay the bed flat, there was a book she was reading and the book was called, No Time To Say Goodbye.’
Niamh thanked her sister for sharing her beloved son and the only grandchild of John and Mary Fitzpatrick with the family.
‘The day Dara formally adopted Fionn was one of the happiest days of her life and that of her family,’ recalled Niamh.
‘Fionn now embodies Dara’s characteristics of family. He often insti- gates the family group hug. Dara adored Fionn.’
Recalling a sister who was a funloving ‘rogue’ and who could be ‘a messer’, Niamh listed the qualities that family members have in common with the late Captain Fitzpatrick. She also revealed how her sister Emer had the heartbreaking job of telling Fionn that his mother wouldn’t be coming home.
‘My parents, you shared Dara’s bravery, you’ve handled this with strength and dignity. You have not locked yourself in a room and said, “Leave me alone”, or turned to drink. You have looked people in the face and you have let them comfort you and you share Dara’s bravery.
‘My sister Orla, you shared Dara’s physical appearance and her shy and goofy personality. Emer you shared Dara’s sense of fairness and what is right. Emer did one of the toughest things anyone could ever do. She sat Fionn down on Dara’s bed this morning and told him that his mother wasn’t coming home.
‘Our brother Johnny shared Dara’s passion for work and her love for animals. Her brother-in-law and friend of 20 years Ciarán shared
‘I was so mad at God. How could be be so greedy?’
her love of the outdoors and her sense of adventure. Rosie, you share Dara’s motherhood ability and Fionn shares Dara’s sense of family with those group hugs.’
In a homily, Fr Andrew O’Sullivan told mourners: ‘Dara’s death has stunned all of us. It has created a deep void in the lives of her loving family. The reality of death with all its pain and sense of terrible loss, confronts us at this moment.’
He also spoke of Dara’s other interests: ‘Dara loved travelling and had so many adventures. She was not only a professional and talented pilot and excelled in what she did, but also a great horsewoman, she loved donkeys. She was a hillwalker and an adventurer.’
Dara’s friend and colleague Cathal Oaks paid a moving tribute to her. He said: ‘In 1993 on one of the phone calls home, my dad told me that Irish helicopters had hired a new young female pilot for the SRA in Shannon. Dara went on to have one of the best careers in the history of search and rescue worldwide, and being involved in, conservatively we estimate, 800 search and rescues missions.’
He recalled Dara’s effortless ‘style and humility’. ‘She was great to be on shift with, always well able for the craic. And while you knew you could curse or tell a dodgy joke in her company, you just kind of wouldn’t want to. It is most apt that the last aircraft Dara flew was called Banríon an Spéir, which means Queen of the sky.
‘Dara was never just a role model because she was a woman, she was a role model to us her fellow pilots and crew.’
Mr Oaks made a heartfelt plea to the congregation to keep there ‘heads and bodies’ strong in the search for the crew members still missing at sea. Concluding his moving tribute, Mr Oaks ‘borrowed’ the words of poet WH Auden by reading Funeral Blues.
Dara’s sister Niamh urged mourners to follow Captain Fitzpatrick’s lead, and tackle the world head-on, embracing any fears they had in life, just like her sister had. ‘Do a Dara on it,’ she told the congregation. In one final tribute from the Coast Guard, a helicopter flew over the church before Captain Fitzpatrick began her final journey to Mount Jerome Cemetery in Harold’s Cross where she was cremated.
Dara Fitzpatrick is survived by Fionn, who she adopted three years ago, as well as her parents, John and Mary Fitzpatrick, her sisters Niamh, Orla and Emer, and brother Johnny. By coincidence, the day of her death fell 39 years after the birth of her sister Anna who was stillborn.
Meanwhile, in Mayo the search continues for the Coast Guard’s Sikorsky S-92 helicopter and the bodies of the three men who have been missing since the aircraft disappeared on Tuesday.
Declan Geoghegan, spokesman for the Irish Coast Guard, said yesterday: ‘The search is on-going. Everything at the moment is speculation. Until the Air Accident Information Unit retrieve the Black Box we don’t know what happened. We will know more tomorrow when the weather hopefully abates.’