February 17, 2011
By Staff Reporter
The massive turnout was partly to mourn but also to comfort and protect the couple’s three children who had survived the tragedy.
After their remains were flown home to Ireland, the O’Connells were remembered at services in counties Galway and Kerry. And they will be remembered again next month at a Memorial Mass set for Gaelic Park in New York.
The couple were killed the weekend before last when their family minivan overturned on a highway in Iowa, about 150 miles west of Chicago.
Fifteen-year-old Sarah, her 13-year-old brother Colman, and 10-year-old Maeve, all of whom were traveling with their parents at the time, survived the horrific accident but were hospitalized in Jackson County, Iowa.
All three put aside the effects other injuries and flew to Ireland to pay their own tribute at an emotional funeral Mass in Ballyglunin, County Galway on Monday.
Maeve, who suffered a serious arm injury, wore a black sling.
Anne O’Connell was the youngest member of a renowned Galway GAA family. She played camogie for a number of clubs and for her native county. Her 50-year-old husband, Joe, had been an inter-county hurler for Kerry for 14 years and won numerous club titles with his parish team, Causeway.
The couple moved to the U.S. with their family for work reasons eight years ago and were living in Madison, Wisconsin. They had just started out on a family holiday trip to the west coast when the accident happened.
At the Galway Mass, the three children were taken to the front of Brooklodge Church by their grandmother, Bridie Coleman, as well as uncles, aunts and cousins.
Framed photographs of their smiling parents adorned the altar, close to where their silver and black caskets lay.
Anne O’Connell’s cousin, Fr. Joe McLoughlin, led 14 other priests in the concelebrated funeral Mass for a couple he said had been taken in the prime of life.
Since the deaths, communities in counties Galway and Kerry have bonded together in a show of support and sympathy for the Coleman and O’Connell families and, in particular, for the three grief-stricken children.
Fr. McLoughlin noted that Anne’s brother Eugene and his wife Marie had been the first to hear the terrible news and they had the task of telling everyone else.
A short time later, he said, they were on a plane to the U.S. together with Anne’s other brothers, Michael and Jarlath, and her sister Bridie.
Following the Galway Mass, the funeral cortege drove to Causeway, County Kerry, where on Monday night the couple rested in at the O’Connell family home. They were laid to rest at Killury Cemetery on Tuesday.
Meanwhile, the Mass at Gaelic Park in the Bronx will be held at 10 a.m. on Sunday, July 12. For more information call (718) 499-9482.