Community grieves at funeral of girl (5) killed in house fire

PINK BALLOONS hung from the lamp posts in Boyle, Co Roscommon, as the community said goodbye yesterday to a little girl who loved trying on high heels and watching the Dora the Explorercartoon series on television.

A week after Mari Keane Connolly died in an apparent arson attack at her father’s home, her family, friends and neighbours bore the white coffin carrying her remains through the town.

Shops were closed and staff standing outside blessed themselves as the procession passed by.

The cortege stopped for a few minutes at Boyle playground, its swings and slides deserted, and then again at Mari’s school, Scoil na nAingeal Naofa, where a riot of pink balloons hung from the gates.

At the school, the infant class, all wearing pink arm bands, formed a guard of honour.

At St Joseph’s Church people sobbed as a wheelchair was unfolded from a van for Richard Connolly, Mari’s father. A hospital blanket covered his knees and he was wheeled alongside the small coffin carrying his daughter’s body.

Still a patient at the Mater hospital in Dublin, he sustained horrific injuries when he fell off a roof while trying to shepherd Mari and her two older sisters to safety as fire ripped through his home.

Local priest Fr Alan Conway pointed out that Mari’s parents Teresa and Richard, her sisters, her grandparents and her great-grandmother were wrapped in the support and solidarity of the community.

A choir from her school, all of them wearing pink velvet hair bands – a fashion statement Mari herself would have approved of – sang Be Not Afraid at the start of Mass.

Their teachers, all of them wearing pink scarves in another nod to Mari’s taste, were red-eyed as they too made up a guard of honour later as the coffin left the Church for Assylinn Cemetery.

Outside the church, Teresa Keane used a tissue to rub rain drops from her child’s coffin.

Richard Connolly held his head in his hands as he was tended by his own father, Richard.

In the cemetery, brightly coloured helium balloons were released in memory of a little girl whose love of life will long be remembered.

A third person was arrested yesterday by gardaí investigating the fire which claimed Mari’s life.

The man was arrested in Co Sligo and was being questioned in Boyle Garda station. A man and a woman questioned on the matter last week have been released without charge.