By KATHRYN HAYES
THERE were tearful scenes as hundreds of mourners, mostly teenage girls gathered in Limerick last Sunday night for the removal of tragic Chloe Kinsella, whose body was recovered from the river Shannon.
Most of those crowded outside Crosses funeral home on Lower Gerald Griffin Street had taken part in the six day search for the popular 15- year-old who went missing from her home over a week ago.
Divers from Limerick Marine Search and Rescue recovered Chloe’s body from the river just a short distance from her home in Kenyon Avenue, Kileely last Friday.
Gardai are not treating her death as suspicious.
Scores of teenage girls mostly wearing pink walked the sorrowful journey, behind the funeral cortege to St Munchin’s Church in Thomondgate led by Chloe’s heartbroken parents Shirley and Kevin.
“The girls all decided to wear pink for Chloe,” said one mourner.
The 15-year-old’s love of fashion and make up was incapsulated in many of the floral tributes adorning her large white casket.
Personal tributes including a make up kit, a floral wreath incorporating a smartphone, and a life sized poster of the boy band One Direction were also in the cortege.
Among the largest floral tributes resting against the casket was a collage of photographs of Chloe and her friends with a message ‘Best Friends Forever’.
The youngest daughter in a family of nine children this is not the first time that tragedy has visited the Kinsella family.
In 2004 Chloe’s younger sister Sophie died from a heart illness aged just four.
Shortly after Chloe’s body was found her Uncle Matthew Franklin issued a heartfelt plea to all young people to respect life and seek help if they need it.
Mr Franklin is due to speak on behalf of the Kinsella’s family at today’s funeral mass at St Munchin’s Church.
The chief celebrant Reverend Pat Seaver is also expected to direct his sermon towards young mourners in particular Chloe’s class mates from fifth year in St Nessan’s School and her many friends from the locality.
Meanwhile, Limerick TD Willie O’Dea who was also among the mourners has called on the government to “focus on suicide…as a matter of urgency”.
Deputy O’Dea also criticised his own party on its record on mental health.
“I tell you the last government should equally be criticised with the present government. Both governments spent money on mental health, but I think they spent it in the wrong way. They spent it with the wrong focus.”
“It’s an absolute disgrace, that we are spending so much money and the problem seems to be getting worse and worse and worse.”
He added: “Too many young families have been bereaved (by suicide). I’ve attended too may funerals like this. I’ve sympathised with too many families, like the unfortunate family inside there (funeral home) with their fifteen-year old daughter in there in a coffin. I’m not sure that money is being spent the best way possible.”
Deputy O’Dea called for a more direct way of getting funding to groups helping vulnerable people without the money being “swallowed up in administration”.
