Family bid farewell to murdered brothers

THE two coffins emerged from the church yesterday to the bowed heads of mourners gathered outside. Paddy Hennessy was on the right, his brother Willie on the left.

Behind them, their sister Breda, the last remaining Hennessy sibling, watched as they were placed inside each hearse.

She had stood in exactly the same spot outside the church door on Wednesday as the body of her brother John was taken on its final journey to the cemetery. John’s funeral was witnessed by just three neighbours.

Yesterday, as Breda surveyed the church grounds, her eyes took in every person, almost 50 of them, who had come to pay their respects.

The deaths of her three brothers, in a murder-suicide carried out by John, has left the community in Mitchelstown reeling.

Last Thursday, after killing Willie and Paddy on the family farm with an axe, John took his own life in the River Funshion.

Yesterday’s joint requiem mass for Willie and Paddy saw Breda, who lives in nearby Angelsboro, Co Limerick, joined by her husband, and daughter Lisa. Paddy’s daughter Elaine was accompanied by her young children and partner. Paddy’s ex-partner Stephanie was also present.

Numbers inside the Church of Our Lady Conceived Without Sin in Mitchelstown were limited to 10 due to Covid-19 restrictions.

The service lasted just under an hour. Mourners then travelled to nearby Brigown Cemetery where both men were buried in the same plot as Paddy’s son Paudie, who died by suicide in 2012.

John was buried in a separate plot, where his brother Jer were buried in 2010. He too died by suicide.