A few weeks ago at Aglish Cemetery overlooking the Lee valley a Cork family held a funeral service for the youngest son of four. The coffin was lowered into the grave, but there was no body. Robbie Dean, who was 20 when he died, was lost at sea, and his body was never recovered.
Robbie was a young mechanic, dedicated to a career in the Naval Service which he had always wanted to join. He was looking forward to his first major sea voyage on board the LE Eithne to the east coast of the US as part of Ireland's millennium celebrations.
The Eithne was a major hit in the American ports. Midway across the Atlantic, on its return voyage, something went wrong on board, and Robbie Dean was lost. He was due to come on duty in the engine room for his 4 a.m. shift. When he failed to report, the alarm was raised, and the intensive search began.
The Dean family went through the grieving process as might be expected. Eleanor and Fred, together with their three other sons, Frederick (27), David (25) and Roland (26), hoped that in the first hours, when the air-sea rescue was continuing, they might receive good news.
But, as time passed, their hopes faded and his mother says that by midnight on the day of his disappearance she knew that all she could hope for then was a body.
Unfortunately, that news was not to come either, and for the past two years the family has suffered. There was no closure in their lives, no farewells before the coffin was closed.
Speaking about it now for the first time at their home in Knocknaheeney, the Deans felt the service two weeks ago has given them a release they didn't know before. Each member of the family placed a special item in the coffin connecting them to Robbie. His grandmother's ashes were also interred with him in the family plot.
"There had been a service for Robbie with full naval honours at the base in Haulbowline, but as we entered the church that day, we both looked at one another and whispered 'There's no coffin'," Mr Dean said. "We didn't have closure, we didn't have a place to go to remember Robbie and to pray for him. Now we do, and it's made a huge difference for us."
The decision to hold a funeral service without a body was taken, Mrs Dean said, after the death of her husband's mother in England, 13 months after Robbie was lost at sea.
After the cremation, they decided they'd bring the ashes back and bury them in the family plot at Aglish. It was then that the idea of holding a funeral service for Robbie was born.
"Since Robbie's death, the navy have been absolutely brilliant. They gave us counselling, they were there for us whenever we needed them, and they still are," Mrs Dean said.
The family must face yet another gruelling reminder of how Robbie Dean lost his life. There will be an inquest, but where and when it will be held has not been decided.
He fell overboard midway between Ireland and the US. The question of jurisdiction arises. Should the inquest be held on the Irish side or the American? He was on board a Department of Defence vessel but the trip was organised under the aegis of the Department of Foreign Affairs. Should it be held in Dublin or at the naval HQ in Haulbowline? The Deans are waiting for answers to these questions.