Handle your lives with care, priest tells Shiva funeral
A PRIEST at the funeral of Donegal crash victim Shiva Devine yesterday told her friends: ‘You are not indestructible, you are very fragile, so please handle your lives with care.’
Shiva and Conall McAleer, both 20, died in the crash in Bundoran in the early hours of Sunday morning. Three other people remain in hospital.
Parish Priest Joe O’Donnell told mourners that after ministering in the aftermath of the 2010 road tragedy that claimed eight lives in the Inishowen peninsula, it had taken him two years to recover.
He said: ‘I had hoped that I would never have to face anything like that ever again. It took me two years to recover. While the circumstances and the details of Sunday morning’s crash in Bundoran may be totally different, the one true fact remains: young lives have been lost. Shiva Devine and Conall McAleer have been taken from us.’
The Ballintra parish priest told a crowd of several hundred in St Brigid’s Chapel of his memories of the 2010 tragedy: ‘At 9pm that Sunday evening I was called to Letterkenny General Hospital, and told to be prepared for many casualties, that ended with the loss of eight lives.
‘I spent that Sunday night and most of Monday morning consoling parents and their friends and leading them down to identify their children.’
He addressed Shiva’s friends who had gathered at yesterday’s funeral, he had these words of caution: ‘To all you young people here this morning, I say, you are not indestructible, you are very fragile so please handle your lives with care.’ He added that the tragic death of Shiva and Conall were ‘so sudden – like a blackout. We are unable to understand it.
‘The only thing we can do just when a blackout happens is to rush for a light, even that of a small candle.
‘We only have Christ our Lord now to help us penetrate this awful darkness. We thank God for the life and memories of your dear friend Shiva Blue Devine.
‘Donegal and Fermanagh will never forget you.’
The tragic young mother had loved life, her friends and family and especially her baby boy Kyle, he said, telling mourners: ‘We will never see Shiva’s smile again, or the funny carefree person that she was.’ Meanwhile, a friend of Shiva’s quietly paid her the ultimate tribute: ‘As Oscar Wilde said we are all in the gutter but Shiva is smiling down on us from on top of a bright blue star.’
Shiva Blue Devine was laid to rest in the adjoining cemetery amid truly harrowing scenes on a balmy August afternoon.
The congregation, which was described as one of the biggest in living memory, heard that Shiva wasn’t much interested in modern music – but loved country and western, and with this in mind, Fr O’Donnell recited the poem I Grew Up On Country Music, by Roger Turner.
Shiva is survived her partner Brian, three-year-old son Kyle, parents Nicola and Julian, and siblings, Odin, Che, Freya and Eris Daisy, as well as a large extended family. The young mother was one of two passengers killed when the Peugeot 306 they were in struck a wall and spun back onto the road before hitting a pole in Bundoran in the early hours of Sunday.
And yesterday it emerged that Shiva had been a passenger in a car that crashed on the Belleek to Garrison road in Fermanagh just a few hours before the fatal crash.
Nobody was injured in the Fermanagh incident, in which the car went off the road.
All six occupants of the Peugeot 306 were on their way to Northern Ireland from a night out in the Donegal seaside resort when tragedy struck.
Three of the friends are still in hospital and one of them, Rachel Elliott, was yesterday said to be in a critical condition.
Ms Elliott, a mother of one, was airlifted from Sligo University Hospital to Beaumont Hospital in Dublin following the incident.
A man in his early 20s arrested in connection with the crash was questioned at Ballyshannon Garda Station on Sunday but was later released without charge.
‘Shiva and Conall have been taken’ ‘You are not indestructible’