Comment: We hold the community of Creeslough in our hearts

The brutal, heartbreaking reality of last Friday's devastating event in Creeslough, Co Donegal, began to truly hit home today (Tuesday) as the first two of 10 funerals took place in and around the close knit village now holding each other for comfort and answers.

Local priest, Fr John Joe Duffy, who himself will surely need support to process the magnitude of the tragedy that has befallen his beloved Creeslough community intimated as much when he said that as the initial numbness, shock and adrenaline begins to wear off "the enormity of the tragedy becomes clearer and clearer."

"As the first victim of the tragedy was brought home you saw people along the road and candles being lit along the road, and when you saw a beautiful young person coming home... it just began more and more to dawn on people."

The 10 people who died were Catherine O'Donnell, (39), and her 13-year-old son James Monaghan; Robert Garwe, (50), and his five-year-old daughter Shauna Flanagan Garwe; 14-year-old Leona Harper; Jessica Gallagher, (24); James O'Flaherty, (48); Martin McGill, (49); Martina Martin, (49), and 59-year-old Hugh Kelly.

Jessica Gallagher, the 24-year-old fashion designer due to have started her new job in Belfast yesterday, was the first of Friday's victims to be laid to rest followed by Martin McGill, at St Michael's Church in Creeslough. President Michael D Higgins will be represented at today's (Tuesday’s )funerals by his aide-de-camp.

It is understood the President will return from Strasbourg tonight and travel to Donegal tomorrow where he will attend the remaining funerals and meet relatives of all those killed in the tragedy as well as with members of the emergency services. There can be no more sombre duty for a Head of State to carry out but the grief-stricken community will know that he carries the sorrow, thoughts and prayers of all of us with him.

What words of comfort President Higgins can offer the broken people of Cresslough will be surely welcomed by the families of those loved ones gone, lost forever in an instant while simply going about their daily lives, popping into the Applegreen service station shop for treats, filling the car with fuel, visiting a loved one's apartment above the store. It is all so inexplicably random and now so devastatingly final.

Jessica Gallagher was visiting her boyfriend's apartment above the service station when the explosion happened.

Celtic fan Martin McGill was a devoted son who cared for his elderly mother, he had gone into the garage to use the ATM machine when he was caught in the explosion.

Leona Harper was just 14, and decided against going to a birthday party and instead decided to have a sleepover with a friend in Creeslough and went into the shop to buy ice-cream.

James Monaghan (13), he was standing in the queue with mother Catherine O'Donnell when tragedy struck, killing them both.

Martina Martin, a mother-of-four who has family links to Ardee worked in the busy service station.

James O'Flaherty was originally from Sydney and had lived in the area for some time, while Hugh Kelly at 59 was the oldest person to perish in the blast.

Robert Garwe, 50, and his five-year-old daughter Shauna Flanagan Garwe, had gone into the shop to buy a birthday cake and treats. Little Shuana was youngest person to lose their life in the explosion.

It is the normality, the ordinariness, the everyday going about their business of these beautiful souls, as well as all those injured, just making their way through this world that has touched something deep within us all.

It can only be because we can see ourselves and our loved ones in those 10 individual stories. Waving off a daughter for a sleepover, running to the shop to get a cake and treats for a celebration, running errands to a post office after a school run, the monotonous ritual of filling the car with fuel. We see ourselves, our children, our friends in those vignettes of daily life.

It's our fragility, how, in a millisecond of inexplicable horror, lives can be just taken. It's just too cruel to fully comprehend.

For today and for the painful days ahead all we can do is hold the people of Creeslough dear in our hearts and hope the community finds the strength to come through this palpable darkness.

May Catherine, James, Robert, Shauna, Leona, Jessica, James, Martin and Hugh rest in peace and may all those injured make a speedy recovery.

- Leader Comment taken from this week's paper