The lives of three young men were "swept away by a tide they were powerless to resist", a priest has told mourners at the last of the funerals in Belfast for the three friends who died at the weekend after consuming a mixture of alcohol and prescription drugs.
At Mr Eamonn McCoubrey's Requiem Mass yesterday, Father Dermot McCaughan, parish priest, said Eamonn's parents felt their son's death would not have been entirely in vain if even one young person learned from the tragedy.
Mr McCoubrey (22) died after attending a house party in west Belfast on Saturday night. Two other men who also died, Mr Jim O'Connor (20) and Mr Thomas Sterrit (18), were buried on Wednesday.
Preliminary results of post-mortem examinations indicated that the three young men died after taking a mixture of alcohol and prescription medicines.
Scores of young people joined the cortege from Mr McCoubrey's home in Hannagh Glen Heights, off the Glen Road, to St Joseph's Church on Hannahstown Hill. Mr McCoubrey was buried in the cemetery adjoining the church.
The deaths have prompted the tabling of a motion in the Stormont Assembly on drugs and education.
A 22-year-old man is in a critical condition in hospital in Belfast after taking drugs at the weekend. The man is being treated in intensive care at the Royal Victoria Hospital. It is not known if the incident is linked to the deaths of three young men in west Belfast at the weekend.