As his profile picture on social media John Mullan chose not a photo of himself, but one of his family.
The four of them shine out from the photograph – 49-year-old John, his 14-year-old son Tomás, little Amelia, aged six, and his wife and the children’s mother, 45-year-old Geraldine; all crammed together into the frame of the camera, all smiling.
Their parish priest, Fr Pat O’Hagan, on Friday spoke of a family who had done everything together. “They came to Mass as a family. If one was there, the four of them were there.”
The whole family were practicing members of the parish, he said; Tomás had been an altar server, and Amelia was a “wee dote” who would “come up with her parents to receive her blessing at Holy Communion”.
In recent months, John and Geraldine had been working hard; John was building-up the family business – a garden centre in their home town of Moville, Co Donegal – after its enforced closure during the coronavirus pandemic, while Geraldine was a nurse manager in the cancer unit in Letterkenny General Hospital.
But with Thomas and Amelia due back at school next week, they had decided to take a week’s holiday to spend as a family. “Every day they were going somewhere,” said Fr Farren. “They wanted to give the wains [children] something to enjoy before they went back to school.”
High waves
Thursday evening was spent at an entertainment complex in Derry with a cinema and a bowling alley; as John began driving home at about 10 o’clock, it was dark, and the weather conditions were terrible, with heavy rain and strong winds.
At Three Trees, just before Quigley’s Point, the road runs right alongside Lough Foyle; the waves were so high, local people said, they were crashing over the embankment and onto the road.
The front wheel of the car went off the road, a garda source said; Mr Mullan tried to regain control of the car but it overturned, and plunged into the water.
Geraldine managed to escape and pulled both children from the car, but was unable to save them; bystanders had to hold her back to prevent her from going to look for them in the rough water.
On Friday, a sense of shock was palpable in the centre of Moville. “There’s a black cloud hanging over Moville today,” said Patrick Gillen, the co-owner of Gillen’s Supermarket on the main street.
“I grew up with John,” said another shop owner, “and he was a lovely, quiet man, very family-orientated. “Everything with him was about the family . . . everything was for and with the kids.”
Anthony Dougan, the principal of Moville Community College where Tomás was about to enter his Junior Cert year – paid tribute to a keen musician who loved to play the accordion, and was regarded as a “quiet, respectful student who was well-liked by students and staff”.
‘Like a fairytale’
One local woman described how Geraldine – who was originally from Williamstown, Co Galway – had met John through her job as a nurse.
“She arrived to look after his mother, and they fell in love. It was like a fairytale, really.”
“The whole town knew them, because everyone used the garden centre,” said shopkeeper Mary McElhinney. “It’s so devastating. How could you even come to terms with that? A home is not a house, a home is people, and she [Geraldine] has nothing to come back to.”
Moville GAA club – where Amelia played and Geraldine helped out on a Saturday morning – said John, Tomás and Amelia would be “missed terribly”; they spoke for many in the town when they pledged members would “work hard to give Geraldine the same love, support and encouragement as she has shown many of us in the past as we all struggle to come to terms with her loss”.
