Martin McGill was remembered yesterday as a “beautiful soul, who you could just feel the goodness flowing out of” in the second funeral of the Creeslough victims.
The 49-year-old was buried just three hours after the community said farewell to young fashion designer Jessica Gallagher. Hundreds had gathered at 11am for Jessica and they gathered again at 2pm, this time for Martin, faces drawn, umbrellas and coats still damp from their journey to the morning service, knowing yet struggling to comprehend just what they were facing as the week unfolded.
As crowds collected along the roadside near St Michael’s Church ahead of the requiem Mass, there were tears and handshakes, hugs and bowed heads. But shortly before 2pm, the sound of a lone piper drifted on the breeze as Martin’s coffin was taken from his home nearby, and those who had come to pay their respects stood a little taller as his mother Mary McGill led his cortege to the family church.
