Pat Muckian was “a good and endearing friend to all”

MOURNERS at the funeral of Pat Muckian, the Dundalk pensioner who died tragically following an alleged axe attack at her sister’s house, heard how she was “a very good and endearing friend to all.”

“Integrity was a key characteristic in her life and she demonstrated this all her life, particularly to her family and friends,” said Fr Mark O’Hagan Administrator Dundalk, who delivered the homily at her funeral Mass in St Nicholas Church. “If she could do a good turn, she’d do it.”

He spoke of the shock which her death had brought to the community, of which she was very much part of through her work with Dundalk Credit Union.

He recalled how on the afternoon of Friday May 3 when he got a text message saying that there had been an incident in Glenwood.

He later got a call from Pat’s sister Bernadette telling him of the news they had received he described the feeling of “almost disbelief ” he had felt at hearing that something so tragic could happen to someone he knew so well, someone who was the life and soul of the party.

Referring to the earlier Gospel reading of the widow who was “beside herself ” following the death of her son, he said that Pat’s remaining seven sisters have been “left feeling as though they have been robbed, left struggling to understand what happened, bewildered, and left with a feeling of of deep loss and a future without any hope.”

“It is natural to cry but let us not forget Pat’s years and how much she has left us to remember her by,” he continued.

“When you say Pat Muckian, what’s the first thing you think of ?” he asked the congregation in St Nicholas Church.

“She had a long association with the Credit Union. It was part and parcel of her DNA and the Credit Union is very much part and parcel of the community here in Dundalk.”

“We’ll all miss her laughter, her joking. When she came into a room, she almost commanded the room, with her hand on her hip and ready for a photo.”

Fr O’Hagan also recalled Pat as being “a stickler for time keeping”.

She was “a black and white type of person” who got her message across.

But Pat also had “a loving and caring side,” he continued. “She always watch out for you. She had your back, and when you became friends with her, you had a friend for life.”

“She loved her family. She was Mammy to everyone and absolutely adored her nephews and nieces, her grandnephews and grandnieces.”

Pat treated them like her own children and pushed them to do better, to get the best out of life.

Mourners heard that Pat loved her holidays and had been due to travel to Tenerife with her sister Margaret in a couple of weeks time. She also loved walking and talking to those she met on her walk.

She was a lady with a sense of style “whose hair, make-up and clothes were always to perfection.”

“If one word sums her up, it’s connect. She was connected to the church, her family and friends.”

Pat is survived by her heartbroken sisters Eilish (O’Brien), Barbara ( Walshe, Navan), Sheila, Mary (Connolly), Margaret, Bernadette (Cunningham) and Angela, aunt Nuala (Guckian), brothers-in-law, sisters-in-law, nephews, nieces, grandnephews, grandnieces, extended family, neighbours and friends.

She was laid to rest in St Patrick’s Cemetery, Dowdallshill, not far from her home on the Doylesfort Road.