In Analeentha churchyard as the funeral Mass was ending, a group of young nurses stepped from the crowd and formed two straight lines on either side of the hearse.
They waited in silence, each holding a single red rose.
Though it was wet and the wind was bitter, they stood unflinchingly in short-sleeved white tunics as if, in their sorrow, they couldn’t feel the cold.
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Not long ago, Karen Buckley was their classmate at nursing college in Limerick. Now they are mourning her: their friend, who went on a night out with pals and never returned.
There was a Karen everywhere you looked yesterday: bright, confident, clever young women at the exciting beginning of a life full of promise and possibility.
They clung to each other in bewilderment and shock.
This horrible, senseless murder – how could it happen to one of them?
A Karen everywhere, and everywhere was Karen.
She was baptised in the small church of St Michael the Archangel, from whence she would be buried. She made her First Holy Communion and Confirmation there. When she was little, she was an altar server. The parish priest from that time came back to concelebrate her requiem Mass.
Karen went to the national school next door. She played in the fields around it. She supported the local GAA club. She waitressed in the local hotel when she was in school.
Local girl
Karen is that open and pleasant local girl who takes your order with a smile. She is that photo on the wall with mortarboard and parchment. She is the reassuring night-time text. The Facebook update. The daughter, sister, friend, colleague.
That this could happen. How could it happen? Every family’s nightmare.
“What shall I say?” said Parish Priest Fr Joseph O’Keeffe at the beginning of his homily. “What can I say?”
It was a beautiful homily.
He spoke of time.
“Karen’s death seems so totally inappropriate. It violates our sense of order . . . 24 years simply doesn’t seem like the right time to die – doesn’t seem to add up.”
He spoke of tears.
The “indescribable hurt” when a child is taken from us. “It is an hour of heartache, a time of tears.”
And finally, he spoke of faith.
“Within the scope of human reason, a tragedy such as this simply doesn’t make sense. Therefore, we either despair or find our strength in faith.”
Faith was strong in that church yesterday. Faith and fortitude.
Yet again, despite all they have been through and are enduring, the Buckley family made sure that the priest thanked everyone for their help and support over the last few weeks.
As Fr O’Keeffe’s words were relayed by loudspeakers from the packed church to the overflowing marquee and churchyard, there was scarcely a sound.
At the church door, men in caps bowed their heads and leaned in sideways against the wall. Members of Clyda Rovers GAA club – the river Clyda flows through this lush north Cork valley – who acted as stewards for the day, stopped what they were doing and listened.
You could hear the cattle in the fields beyond and the steps of one man walking down the road to the church gate.
Representatives of the police force in Glasgow, where Karen Buckley died, came to pay their respects and they were joined by members of An Garda Síochána. Fellow students from Caledonian University, where she was studying for her master's in occupational therapy, came with bunches of flowers. The Lord Mayor of Cork was in attendance and some politicians too.
The media kept a respectful distance.
Community gathering
But above all, this was a community gathering. The Mass was a community effort. In the marquee, the seats came from the nearby sports hall. Up the road in the GAA club, the ladies spent their morning making sandwiches for after the funeral.
Inside the light-filled church, the choirs from Analeentha and adjoining Burnfort combined to sing for Karen. Local woman Carmel Breen was soloist.
There was a sense of the community enfolding the Buckley family, trying as best it could to support and protect them.
Local farmers moved cattle to turn their fields into car parks.
“We’ve never done this before. I hope we do it right and I hope, dear Jesus, I hope we’ll never ever have to do this again,” said one of the stewards.
The carpet at the wooden altar was gleaming. The altar itself was made from native wood by a local carpenter in time for last year’s Holy Communion.
As the congregation gathered, the morning was punctuated by the school bell ringing next door. The flags there were flying at half mast.
A large floral spray from her devoted family rested on Karen’s coffin. Bright, girly flowers – pink and white lilies and roses and floaty gypsophila.
There was a large frame photograph of Karen, head inclined, vibrant, smiling out at everyone. Red rosary beads wound around it.
Her cousin Pádraig Hurley described the offertory gifts which her three brothers carried to the altar. Brendan brought up a picture of his sister’s first day at school. Kieran brought her nurse’s uniform.
“Karen was known for being a kind and caring nurse whose smile would light up a ward,” said Pádraig.
Damien took up the dress she wore to Brendan’s wedding. “As you can see from the picture, she looked beautiful.”
Tears flowed.
Karen’s cousins and friends read the prayers of the faithful. All young women, remembering her through their grief. Some of them could hardly speak, struggling through their words, their sobs audible in the background long after they finished.
Her parents, John and Marian, brought the bread and wine to the altar. Faith and fortitude.
The weather worsened as the service progressed. Under grey skies, the nurses took up position outside.
Then the voice of Siobhán Leahy, another cousin, rang out across the churchyard. She had a poem to read.
“Small and gentle, Honest and true/Our sister Karen/ How much we will miss you . . .”
She spoke of a much cherished young woman who had dreams and plans and loved to laugh.
“A smile to lift a thousand frowns/
“Brown eyes shining – big and round/
“A country girl – big hopes, big plans/
“Big heart, big smile and caring hands.”
Heavens opened
It was freezing now in the churchyard. And the heavens opened, making it easier to cry.
The nurses, sodden to the marrow, stayed in their places, dabbing their eyes with disintegrating tissues.
“We love you, Karen,” whispered Siobhán.
And then a haunting song swelled out from the PA. Goodnight my Angel sung by Celtic Woman.
“Goodnight my angel/
“Time to close your eyes/
“And save these questions for another day/ . . .
“Goodnight my angel, now it’s time to sleep.
“And still so many things I want to say/
“Remember all the songs you sang for me.”
The guard of honour stood strong. Shivering. It was heartbreaking.
The coffin was put in the hearse. Karen’s family stood behind it, grouped together and hugged, long and hard.
Karen was the youngest. The only girl.
John, her father, asked specially for that song.
She was buried alongside her grandparents a few miles along the road in Burnfort Cemetery. The yellow gorse in bloom around the boundary walls and two young cherry trees at each side of the gates, buds bursting into pink blossom.
And in a small graveyard in north Cork on the cusp of summer, they laid Karen to rest.
