Duggan family heartbreak at passing of Aisling (5) in Ballinlough

Michael Commins

IT was an evening of almost unbearable sadness as people queued in large numbers for over four hours last week to sympathise with the Duggan and Cregg families on the sudden death of five year old Aisling Duggan at the family home in Willsborough, Ballinlough.
Tears flowed freely and many were left without words as they filed past the coffin on Tuesday evening. So intense was the sadness felt across the region that some people, especially mothers, were unable to bring themselves to attend the reposing and instead attended the Mass of the Angels in Ballinlough Church on Wednesday. It was grief that went right to the core of the human psyche.
Aisling was the eldest of a family of three born to John and Olivia Duggan. John, from Castlerea, is a Garda detective, and Olivia, nee Cregg from Ballinlough, is a qualified vet and currently lectures in Veterinary Science in Athlone IT.
John is a brother of the former well known Roscommon footballer, Derek Duggan. His father Martin (a retired member of An Garda Síochana) hails from Spotfield, Bekan, and his mother Breege is from Galway.
The overflow congregation at the Mass of the Angels, celebrated by Fr Joe Feeney, PP, reflected the extraordinary outpouring of emotion and sadness that touched hearts and minds over such a wide region. Interment took place in Ballinlough Cemetery.
Aisling, who was predeceased by her grandfather John Cregg, will always be so sadly missed by her loving parents John and Olivia, her sister Clodagh and brother Cathal, her heartbroken grandparents Martin and Breege Duggan (Castlerea), and Margaret Cregg (Ballinlough), great-grandmother Mary Ellen Raftery (Ballinlough), her uncles Derek, Kenneth and Kevin, aunts Carol, Sandra, Marese and Joanne, uncles-in-law, aunts-in-law, cousins, extended family, neighbours and friends.