A message of condolence from the Pope was read at the funeral in Armagh yesterday of the 23-year-old aid worker killed in a plane crash during a mercy mission in Kosovo.
Hundreds of mourners joined Andrea Curry's parents Richard and Phyllis, twin sister Louise and younger sister Helen (19) for a requiem Mass in St Patrick's Cathedral.
Representatives of GOAL, the charity with which Ms Curry, a civil engineer, had just started work, attended, along with school and university friends.
Ms Curry, 9of Ashley Avenue, was on her first mission with the organisation when she died.
Twenty charity workers and three crew were also killed when their World Food Programme flight from Rome crashed into a mountain 16 km north of the Kosovo capital, Pristina, nine days ago.
Parish administrator Father Richard Naughton the family's priest, described Ms Curry as a "bright, intelligent girl" with a lively sense of humour, who wanted nothing more than to help people less fortunate than herself. "She wanted to devote her life to helping others," he told the congregation. He said Ms Curry considered herself a citizen of the world and had wanted to travel to where she was needed.
Father Naughton added: "She was fulfilling her dream of working for an aid agency when she was killed." The Mayor of Armagh, Cllr Tom Canavan, said Ms Curry, a former student at St Catherine's College in the city, was a young woman who demonstrated all that was best in the present generation.
Her obvious commitment to humanity was a shining example to all, he said.