Mourners brave the wind
AS six members of the Coast Guard, wearing their distinctive black dress uniforms, gently eased the tri-colour-draped coffin of their fallen colleague, Captain Dara Fitzpatrick, from a hearse, the only words that could be heard were from her three-year-old son Fionn, repeatedly calling ‘Mama’.
He, it seemed, was the only one who knew what to say when words failed the hundreds gathered outside the church of St Patrick’s in Glencullen, Co Wicklow, for the funeral of the search and rescue pilot yesterday.
The 45-year-old mother-of-one died during a rescue mission off the Mayo coast in the early hours of Tuesday morning. Three of her crew from R116 are still missing.
Emer – one of Dara’s three sisters – broke the news to her nephew just hours before the funeral at the small country church where her family had gathered so many times before.
A tricolour hung at half-mast outside the church. A heavy mist hung low over the foothills of the mountains. The rain, which started as the first of her friends and colleagues from the Coast Guard and emergency, services began to arrive two hours before the 11am
funeral Mass, never stopped. It was if the whole world was grieving for the loss of a pilot who had been involved in more than 800 operations to save the lives of others.
The rain was still pouring when Dara’s father John, her sisters Emer, Niamh and Orla, carried her coffin, along with their brother Johnny, from the church after a 90-minute funeral Mass.
President Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Enda Kenny were in attendance along with Transport Minister Shane Ross, Jobs Minister Mary Mitchell O’Connor, Fianna Fáil leader Micheál Martin and the Aer Corps second-incommand, deputy chief of staff Major General Kevin Cotter.
After the heartbreak of losing their daughter on the 39th anniversary of the death of another of their children, daughter Anna, Captain Fitzpatrick’s parents, John and Mary, still found the strength to greet each of the 1,200 mourners.
They stood in the wind and rain for three quarters of an hour as mourners from the Coast Guard, Dublin Fire Brigade, Salvation Army, mountain rescue teams, and the Aer Corps, stood shoulder to shoulder to pay their respects to the country’s second ever female search and rescue helicopter pilot.
As her family and friends hugged and embraced each other outside the church, a lone red and white rescue helicopter emerged from the mist. Rescue 117 – an aircraft Dara had previously worked on while based in Waterford – circled the grounds of the church to pay tribute to their comrade.
On the ground, Dara’s family waved as R117 disappeared into the distance.