A GEM is how the parents of Connor Currie described their 16-year-old son, mourners at his funeral were told.
And yesterday his mother Ciara and father Eamon, with their three younger sons gathered around them, said their final goodbyes to their first-born.
Connor (16) was the youngest of the three teenagers to die at the St Patrick’s night disco and his was the final funeral to take place.
The small, country roads leading to Saint Malachy’s Church, Edendork, just two miles outside Dungannon, were lined with those who had come to pay their final respects at the 2pm service.
Mourners included Sinn Féin’s Michelle O’Neill and Michelle Gildernew as well as party leader Mary Lou McDonald.
Given the size of St Malachy’s Church, hundreds had to stand outside and the Requiem Mass was relayed via loudspeakers, with mourners gathering in the graveyard and the lanes around the church.
The silence was punctuated only by the occasional bark of a dog and the distant rumble of traffic.
Schoolfriends, both from St Patrick’s Academy, which Connor attended, and others in the area, along with members of Edendork GAC, for which the keen GAA fan played, lined both sides of the narrow pathway up to the church.
Other young people, many in tears and with their arms around each other, stood in huddles as they waited for the cortege to arrive.
Team-mates from Edendork GAC said their own emotional farewell to their friend, forming a tight circle around the coffin, arms draped around each other’s shoulders, before the remains were carried the short distance uphill to the church.
As the Mass began, items to remember Connor’s life were brought forward by his parents and his brothers Sean, Cormac and Cahir, who were all wearing Edendork club jerseys - a family photograph, a St Patrick’s Academy blazer, an Edendork football club jersey, his football boots and a football trophy.
Father Kevin Donaghy, parish priest of Dungannon and the chief celebrant, said the times with Connor were “good times” and that in recent days his parents and close family had been greatly comforted by the good memories shared with them by their son’s classmates, team-mates, teachers and friends.
He said: "Friends have recalled how he lit up a room as he entered it and his infectious smile warmed everyone’s hearts.
"Teachers remember him as a courteous and appreciative young student, always in the habit of saying thank you as he left the classroom - though he maybe let that be the passport that got him through an odd bit of mischief as well.
"At home that ‘thank you’ was a constant habit as well - he always spoke those words as he left the kitchen table.
"Unlike the usual reputation of teenage boys he was quite fussy about the tidiness of his room, the wardrobe hangers well used and clothes neatly folded in the drawer, no clutter in the room and everything in its place. He knew he was loved at home – as his parents said to me ‘he was a gem’.”
Fr Donaghy told mourners that Connor, a conscientious student, had wanted to do accountancy and that “the office desk and computer set-up in his bedroom a sure sign that he was preparing for a life of paperwork, computers and figures”.
“He was a star on the football field as well - the trophy brought up at the start of the Mass just one token of the commitment and skills he was developing,” he added.
Fr Donaghy described how Connor's friends had recently shared some videos with his parents of him dancing.
He said: "There’s always bits of a teenager’s life that the parents don’t get to see, so it has only been in the last few days that Connor’s friends shared with his parents some video shots on their phones of Connor practising his dance moves – and improving those skills as well."
He also related a story of how Connor, who had spent the first seven years of his life in Portadown, had recently gone to the McKenna Cup Final wearing his Tyrone top.
But before leaving the house, he let his Armagh-born mother have a peep to see that he had an Armagh top on underneath.
“Connor was going to be a winner either way,” Fr Donaghy said to a ripple of laughter in the church.
He added: “And a winner indeed he was: a winner of a loving family; a winner of many loyal friends and team-mates; a winner in school life and on the sports field - and a winner above all, of a place among the ranks of God’s children.”
Mourners also heard about Connor’s kind and loving nature, especially within his own family where “despite his young age he had a remarkable capacity to look after his younger brothers… so much so that he could be left to look after them and even prepare food for them when their parents went shopping or on some short trip”.
Prayers of the faithful were read by Connor’s friends Ruairi O’Hanlon, Jamie Watt, James Currie and Darragh Dalton with one of the boys breaking down in tears towards the end of the prayer.
A moving communion reflection was given by Niall Morgan, Tyrone footballer and a local primary school teacher, ending in the line, ‘So when tomorrow starts without me don’t think we’re far apart. For every time you think of me, I’m right with you, in your heart’.
Hymns sung during the Mass included the Old Rugged Cross, Lady of Knock and Jealous of the Angels.
At the final commendation, Archbishop Eamon Martin reminded young people of the importance of continuing to look after each other, adding “and don’t be afraid to pray”.
He said: “In the days ahead, we will cherish the memories of these precious and gifted young people whose lives have been so suddenly wrenched from among us; we will continue to hold their families, and each other, close in love and faith.”
