A LARGE crowd of mourners paid their respects at the graveside of Mrs Nonie Gordon, during her funeral yesterday at the Church of Our Lady of Lourdes Caltra, Co Galway.
Mrs Gordon (76) collapsed and died at Galway Circuit Criminal Court on Tuesday, at the start of the trial of Mr Pat Gillane.
Mr Gillane denies soliciting two men to murder his wife and Mrs Gordon's daughter, Mrs Philomena Gillane, in January 1994.
Mrs Gillane's body was found in the boot of her Opel Kadett car at Athlone railway station in May, 1994. Then seven months pregnant, she had been stabbed several times and shot.
Father Francis Glennon, the parish priest of nearby Ahascragh, concelebrated the funeral Mass yesterday with the former curate of Caltra, Father Christopher McHugh.
Father Glennon recalled Mrs Gordon's deeply felt love for her family, and her strength in the face of sorrow and suffering.
"There were only three important things in Nonie's life - her God, her family, and her work," he said.
"She was a very hard working person. I sometimes thought she worked too hard.
"She dearly loved her family and indeed they loved her, too, very dearly. Therefore, her passing at this time, so suddenly, is going to be very hard on them, but time and the Lord take away most, if not all, of the sorrow.
"Nonie was a shy, retiring sort of person consequently she avoided publicity like the plague," Father Glennon added.
"She had other difficulties and sorrows in her life, but she never complained.
"All these surely prepared her for what St Paul said, the glory, which is waiting for us, a place where there is no more pain or tears but only lasting joy".
As we commend Nonie to the Lord, I would like to leave you with that quotation. Nonie, may you have true and lasting peace, forever, with Michael, Philomena and her child, Mary and her child Jesus.