Main pic: Fr Eamon Kelly PP speaks from the altar in front of the coffins of Úna and her daughters Ciara and Saoirse. Pic: NW NewsPix.
The man who lost his Donegal-born wife and two young daughters in a horrific crash told mourners how hard it is to describe losing his ‘whole family in one go’.
David Bowden has told a packed St Eunan’s Church, Raphoe, how he was looking forward to spending a first night in their newly restored Galway cottage when his world was torn apart.
He was preparing to fly home from Ethiopia, where he was working as a project manager with the UN, when he learned of the crash in Mayo that claimed the lives of his wife Úna (47) – née Carlin and a native of Miltown, Raphoe – and their daughters Ciara (14) and Saoirse (10).
All three died instantly when their car collided with an articulated fuel lorry on the N17 between Knock and Claremorris, County Mayo, last Tuesday, March 26. The family’s beloved dogs, Daisy and Moo, were also killed.
Úna Bowden and her daughters Ciara and Saoirse in happier times.
“It is hard to put into words what the feeling is to lose your whole family in one go,” he said in a eulogy read by his brother, Andrew.
“I am crying so hard. The best is to hope and pray that they are at peace.
“They were all such beautiful girls who lived short, but such fun-filled lives. That is how I would like to remember them.”
Úna beat breast cancer in 2018, when she returned home to Ireland, and the family set up home in Moycullen.
One by one, a heartbroken Mr Bowden helped to take the remains of his wife and children, into St Eunan’s Church, where he poignantly placed a photo on top of each of the wicker caskets.
Sports jerseys rested alongside, signifying a love of sport that took the girls to a variety of clubs in their locality.
David recalled how he was first introduced to Úna at a party in Kent in 2003 and the couple married in Zambia in 2007. Their daughters were born in Africa, where Úna and David ran a safari company based in a remote part of Zambia.
“She was tough and resilient and always game for any new adventures,” David recalled of his late wife.
Úna returned home in 2018 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer. After undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy, she was given the all-clear.
“She was one tough cookie,” David added.
The couple bought a semi-derelict cottage near Moycullen and, on the day he learned of the tragedy, David was set to fly home from the Tigrary area of Ethiopia and was looking ahead to his first night with his family in their new home.
“The irony of this hurts,” he said. “Una was a powerful woman and an extraordinary mother. Our two gorgeous girls were her world. She was my soulmate and my confidante. My world is so empty without her.”
David recalled how Ciara would spend hours out in the bog with her Scottish Terrier dogs, Daisy and Moo.
Saoirse, who loved cats and had ‘such quick wit’, was wearing a Harry Potter jumper at the time of the crash.
David said: “I hope and pray that she has been taken to the magical world she so envisaged.”
He thanked everyone for the ‘wonderful love and support’ and drew on the words of the Laurence Binyon poem For The Fallen: ‘They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old: Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning. We will remember them’.
All that punctured the silence were the bouncing raindrops on the umbrellas sheltering mourners and the innocent songs of birds, rested on the belfry, from which the haunting funeral bells tolled as the three-hearse cortège snaked its way through the old heritage town.
Raphoe, with the quirk of being the smallest cathedral city in Europe, is rooted in history, but its time stood still as two garda outriders led the procession from the Carlin home at nearby Miltown, where they had been waked since Monday.
It was there, on the family farm, that Ciara grew up and where Ciara and Saoirse shared many happy visits to their grandfather, John Carlin.
Classmates of Ciara’s from Salerno Secondary School in Salthill, where she was a first year student, were unable to fight the tears as they gathered after making the 250 km journey to Donegal.
Ciara’s best friend, Amelia, told how they had planned to go to their first disco on the Easter weekend and were to get ready together.
“I know she will be with me now every morning,” Amelia said.
“Ciara was my best friend. She had an incredible joy for life and had an absolute impact on everyone she met. No-one could ever replicate her. She was the most kind and thoughtful friend that I ever had.”
Amelia recalled how Ciara loved a local charity shop, Madra, and would drag her in every time they passed.
“They will forever have a special place in my heart,” she added.
Some of Saoirse’s friends and teachers at Scoil Naomh Bride, Tullykyne National School in Moycullen, the school where she was a third class pupil, were also welcomed to Raphoe.
Local Parish Priest, Fr Eamonn Kelly, said: “In a split second, life was changed forever.
“An ordinary, uneventful morning hid the devastation that lay ahead.
“Every life in this building and every life watching and listening was shook with the hardest of sorrows when the news filtered in . . . Only 71 years of human life between them.
“Words such as heartache and grief and sorrow do not capture the emptiness, the pain, the unfairness, the lousiness of what took place that day.
“The ordinary things in life are best: What would we not give to see again one of their smiles?”
Fr Martin Whelan, the parish priest in Moycullen, travelled to Donegal for the funeral, like many of his parishioners.
Fr John Joe Duffy, the Creeslough priest whose own community was torn apart in an explosion that claimed ten lives in 2022, was among the concelebrants.
First responders who attended the scene of the tragic collision last Tuesday also attended the funeral.
Fr Kelly remembered Úna as a ‘serial degree-getter, who knew what was precious in life.’
Ciara loved her precious Scottish terriers and was ‘brilliant at art and excellent at sport’ while Saoirse was recalled as ‘the biggest Harry Potter fan in the whole wide world and maybe even the biggest in the universe.’
Fr Kelly said: “We try to be of some support to David, painfully robbed of his wife and daughters. Our support is weak, but we do try. It is appreciated by all who are in the pangs of sorrow.”
The three were laid to rest in nearby Convoy, alongside Úna’s late mother, Mary, who died in April 1993.
The funeral pamphlet for the Requim Mass of Úna Bowden and her daughters Ciara and Saoirse. (NW Newspix)
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