Creeslough: ‘They walked from wake to wake’

The waters of Sheephaven Bay, over which looks the ancient Doe Castle, were tranquil this week.

There was a stillness, a silence that felt as if it echoed from nearby Creeslough.

At around 3.15pm on Friday, time stood still in Creeslough. The clock has yet to tick since.

Ten people lost their lives and eight others hospitalised with injuries. One of those remains critically ill in the burns unit of St James’s Hospital in Dublin.

It has been a week like no other in Creeslough.

Leona Harper: Creeslough victim was ‘a little lady with a big heart’

Leona Harper, a 14-year-old victim of the Creeslough explosion, was a 'precious gem' for her parents, her Funeral Mass in Ramelton heard

‘The Creeslough explosion’ entered the lexicon on Friday.

The eyes - and the hearts - of the world remain on a small corner of north Donegal, a community left shattered by the tragedy.

Words have failed in Creeslough, where many have opted to speak in gestures. A hug here, a nod of the head there. A slight raise of the hand, stopped short of a wave. A firm handshake to replace sentences that remain unspeakable.

Gestures, too, from the team of yellow-bib-clad volunteers who have selflessly given of themselves and their time to man the narrow web of routes around Creeslough with diversions still in place.

Mourners embrace at one of the funerals in Creeslough this week

St Michael’s Church in Cresslough, carved in the vista of Muckish, the mountain that gives Creeslough its beautiful backdrop, holds a series of funerals this week with others in Derrybeg and Ramelton.

The same people have been on constant loop of wakes, funeral masses and burials.

It has been said often about how ‘tight-knit’ Creesough is.

Jessica Gallagher, a 24-year-old fashioner designer who had been due to start a new job in Belfast on Monday, was laid to rest on Tuesday, the first of the ten.

Her home is in Killoughcarran, a little more than 2km from the church. Seven of the victims are within a distance of 5km.

Martin McGill was taken from his home just yards from the church on Tuesday afternoon.

On Thursday morning, Martina Martin’s funeral mass will be celebrated in St Michael’s Church. Bluebell Cottage, her home, is less than 1km from the church.

Hugh Kelly, a 59-year-old farmer, will be buried on Friday after his funeral mass at the same church - barely 3km from his home in Castledoe, in the shadows of the 15th century castle.

“They walked from wake to wake,” was how one local described the scene in Creeslough this week.

“What struck us most was the mass silence of people gathered to support one another,” Fr John Joe Duffy remarked at the joint funeral mass of Catherine O’Donnell and her son, 13-year-old James Monaghan, on Wednesday afternoon.

Mourners weep during a dark week in Creeslough

“That has been the story of this community in these days. The love of this community and the communities beyond will mean much in the days ahead.

“The strength of community has been a great comfort: Locals being supported by the emergency and other services; the services being supported by the locals.

“Creeslough, maybe out of all the suffering and pain, has given a gift to the rest of the world - a new understanding of what it means to be community.

“The strength of our people has set a template for the world how, even amidst the greatest pain, we are strongest when we rely on and support one another

“Community spirit and prayer will conquer even the most darkest of hours.”

They know about tragedy around these parts.

Not far from here in January 1925, four people were thrown to their deaths from a train the part of a viaduct collapsed.  The Owencarrow Viaduct Disaster might have been 97 years ago, but it remains weaved into the history of a remote area on the approach to Creeslough from Termon. 

So, too, will the Creeslough explosion.  

Messages of sympathy have poured into Creeslough from across the world. Pope Francis conveyed how he was ‘heartbroken’ at the tragedy.

A fundraising effort has swelled to over €1 million.

In the initial moments after the explosion, dozens of people rushed to the complex in a frantic effort to save others.

“They lay down their own lives for their friends,” Fr Duffy said.

Retired Afric McGlade was among those to lend a hand and remarked how even that mission was done without words: “You could see people were already working quite systematically. They worked so methodically.”

Sometimes, the silence says it all.