Tragic Joanne’s life ‘more than last few hours’
HUDDLED together on a bitterly-cold February morning, the gentle chatter of Joanne Ball’s friends and neighbours fell away to silence as a white horsedrawn carriage brought her remains into the rural church near her home.
The family of the 38-year-old, who was found murdered in Ranelagh last week after being reported missing, followed behind, clinging to each other.
Fr John Conlon told the hundreds-strong congregation that Joanne’s parents Dermot and Catherine wanted to celebrate ‘all of her life’ and not commemorate ‘the last few hours of her life’.
‘No parent should ever have to go through what you are going through,’ said the parish priest of St Cianan’s Church in Duleek, Co. Meath. ‘It is a nightmare. I’m sure that the last few days you’ve prayed that you’d wake up and realise it was just that, a terrible dream. But unfortunately it is not, it’s a reality and you are left to bear this terrible grief, this terrible loss, this pain... and it’s horrible.’ The priest told how Joanne’s family ‘should not be here’. ‘As I look at her brothers and sisters, you shouldn’t have to do this,’ he said. ‘There shouldn’t be a casket in the church today. This family should not be here.’
Fr Conlon added: ‘Actions such as this solve nothing, they only increase pain. But Catherine and Dermot were very anxious that this gathering would not be a commemoration of the last hours of Joanne’s life, but rather it would serve as a celebration of all her life.
‘That life was a life lived in love at the heart of this family.’
Joanne was remembered in three photographs for her love of family, animals, most especially her dog Ziggy, and fashion.
Her aunt Tina’s voice cracked with emotion as she said prayers for all the family.
Afterwards, the horses pulled the carriage with Joanne’s remains to Crossmacole Cemetery.
Joanne’s body was found wrapped in a sleeping bag inside a wardrobe in a flat in Ranelagh two days after she had been reported missing by her family and husband. A postmortem found she had been strangled.
Gardaí have yet to interview her husband Keith Lee who was found with self-inflicted knife wounds in the garden.