MOURNERS wept openly as a recording of Co Donegal road victim Dawn Croke singing Adele’s Make You Feel My Love was played at her funeral Mass yesterday.
The mother-of-two died after being struck in the grounds of St Crona’s National School in Dungloe last Thursday in what gardaí have described as an accident.
It later emerged that the schoolteacher’s last act was to push her partner Patrick McHugh’s six-year-old daughter out of the vehicle’s path.
Ms Croke was a former participant in the annual Mary from Dungloe competition, representing her home town.
A former lifeguard at Carrickfin Strand, she worked as a PE and resource teacher at Dungloe’s Rosses’ Community School.
Both President Michael D Higgins and Taoiseach Leo Varadkar were represented at yesterday’s funeral by their respective aides-de-camp
Dáil Leas Cheann Comhairle (deputy speaker) Pat 'the Cope' Gallagher, who was a friend of the victim and her family, also attended.
As her Requiem Mass at St Crona’s Church ended, a recording of the Adele song which Ms Croke had made as a Christmas present for her parents Tony and Anne was played.
Earlier, the victim’s sister Emily told mourners her partner put an engagement ring on her finger as she lay in her coffin on Friday night.
Dungloe priest Fr Pat Ward said Ms Croke was beautiful and graceful.
“She carried her beauty with grace and with great poise but her beauty wasn’t just her external looks. Her beauty was also within her. It was all that she was; it was her personality, her care for others,” he said.
Ms Croke was laid to rest at Maghery cemetery.
