Another gangster funeral today. No apologies for this. Gangster funerals are such ticklish affairs: it’s so difficult to gild a gangster when he’s dead.
Eamonn Dunne, special subject drugs, responsible for the murders of at least a dozen people including some of his own associates, was blown away while drinking in a Dublin pub.
His brother said of him: “You couldn’t ask for a better role model to be honest with you.” This drew a round of applause. The celebrant, Monsignor Dermot Clarke said with judicious ambiguity: “Life is precious and we should value it. Some have lost the sense of the sacredness of human life and that is to be regretted.” Mgsr Clarke also requested that nobody should smoke on church grounds. “The law of the land pertains here,” he told the congregation.
During the service, a football shirt, a ball and Dunne’s mobile phone were offered as gifts symbolising Dunne’s life journey. The offertory was accompanied by a woman singing a version of Bryan Adams’s ‘Heaven’.
You’ll Never Walk Alone – a song synonymous with his favourite soccer club Liverpool – was played as his coffin was lowered into the ground.
Towards the end of the service the congregation listened to Charlie Landsborough singing My Forever Friend. It is possible that those present supposed Eamonn to be the subject, not Jesus. Ah, well.
Read the account in the Irish Independent here.
