IT WOULD hardly have seemed likely when Robert McKibben joined the British Royal Marines five years ago that his untimely death would become such a poignant symbol of the normalisation of relations between Britain and Ireland.
As the hearse waited outside St Mary's Church in Westport, Co Mayo, on a cold clear morning, it waited opposite a memorial to Capt John MacBride who fought against the British in the Boer War and who was executed for his part in the Easter Rising.
Ancient enmities were forgotten as the people of Westport turned out in their thousands, not for a soldier who died fighting for a foreign army in a foreign land, but a local lad who died tragically and too young.
The sight of six Royal Marines carrying the coffin of an Irishman through the streets of an Irish town would have been inconceivable a generation ago.
It would have been an occasion for silence, ambivalence and sometimes downright hostility in the past, but yesterday it was marked respectfully with every business in the town shutting down along the route.
Although it has a capacity of 1,100, St Mary's Church was overflowing. The congregation included 60 marines from the Royal Marine Brigade Reconnaissance Unit, some in uniforms, most in suits.
The British ministry of defence was represented by Capt John Holloway of the Royal Navy.
They were joined by Irish soldiers from the 51st Reserve Infantry Battalion, McKibben's old FCA battalion, and members of the Garda. The chairman of Westport Town Council Martin Keane also attended.
The mourners were led by his parents, Tony and Gráinne, his sisters Carmel, Rachel and Maggie, brother Raymond and girlfriend Nicola Sanders.
Local priest Fr Denis Kearney remembered Robert McKibben (32), his colleague Neil Runsden, who was also killed, and another Royal Marine who was injured when their 4X4 was struck by a roadside bomb while on patrol in Helmand province in southern Afghanistan on November 12th.
He said those attending the funeral Mass were "expressing the solidarity of the whole community".
The Mass was concelebrated by two of Robert's uncles, Fr Terry O'Malley and his brother Fr Brendan O'Malley, by Royal Marine chaplain Fr Michael Sharkey and by local priests.
Fr Terry O'Malley said thousands of people died unnecessarily every day and when they went to Iraq or Afghanistan their chances of survival "diminished". It was right to acknowledge and respect his nephew's service. "We salute your life, your love and your sacrifice," he told the congregation.
Delivering the eulogy, Warrant Officer Thomas Robert said Robert was known to his fellow marines as "that big Irish fellow".
He praised him as having an "enviable control and relaxed attitude to life, even under the most demanding of conditions".
He retained an "unquenchable passion for his job" which had seen him through the demands of the Special Forces training course he had recently passed, one of the most gruelling training regimes in the British army.
He had a "relaxed, genial character who had touched so many Royal Marines" and who had used his large bulk "to assist, never to intimidate".
Robert missed the west coast of Ireland and smiled every time he mentioned Ireland, Warrant Officer Robert said. His comments were greeted by applause.
Royal Marine bugler Alaine Shakespeare played the Last Postas Robert McKibben was buried at Aughavale Cemetery yesterday afternoon.