An island weeps

FINAL JOURNEY Morgan Pinder is carried shoulder high by family members before his burial on Clare Island last Tuesday afternoon. Pic: Conor McKeown

Anton McNulty

UP to 1,200 people travelled to Clare Island over two days to pay their respects to the parents and siblings of Morgan Pinder, the 13-year-old boy who tragically died in a car accident on the island.
Mourners travelled from all over Mayo and Ireland to Clare Island last Tuesday to attend the funeral of the teenager, who was described by the chief celebrate, Fr John Kenny, as ‘a great ambassador for the island’.
The island community was plunged into grief when news broke in the early hours of Sunday morning, August 5, that Morgan Pinder had died in a single vehicle road accident at Gurteen close to his home on Clare Island.
Morgan was a youngest son of Tom and Maureen Pinder and was due to start secondary school in Sancta Maria College in Louisburgh in a few weeks time.
Speaking at his funeral Mass last Tuesday, Fr Kenny spoke of how Morgan was full of life and ‘taken from this life 80 years too soon’.
“When a child dies it is always nature backwards, grief is overwhelming, and life can never be the same again,” Fr Kenny told the congregation at the packed Church of the Sacred Heart, with hundreds more listening outside.
Morgan was a talented footballer and musician as well as a sean-nós dancer who was also gifted in the art of recitation.
“He could make you laugh out loud with his sense of humour. He was so many things, in so many ways, to so many people, in such a short lifetime,” Fr Kenny noted.
The funeral was one of the largest seen on Clare Island with special boat services organised on the day of the funeral to ferry people to Clare Island. Communities from all around Clew Bay, including neighbouring island communities of Inishturk, Inisbofin and Achill, travelled in large numbers to show solidarity to the islanders in their hour of grief. It was estimated that up to 800 people travelled to the island on Monday to pay their respects at the Pinder family home, where Morgan was waked.
Maureen Pinder has been the Manager of the Clare Island Community Centre for the past decade, and family which also included Morgan’s brothers, Christian, Jack and Dylan, were described as the ‘life-blood’ of the community.

Gifts
Among the gifts brought to the altar during the offertory, were rosettes, which Morgan won in various sheep shows he entered, and a sheep shears. The congregation heard he had a love for sheep farming and would spend hours ‘fluffing up lambs to keep them looking the best’ for sheep shows.
Sheep farmers, accompanied by their prize rams, were among the people who performed guards of honour along with members of Clare Island and Louisburgh GAA Clubs. The wicker basket coffin containing the remains was carried by Morgan’s father, Tom and his three brothers as well as other family members from the family home in Gurteen, to the church.
At the end of the Mass, Morgan’s brother, Christian, spoke on behalf of his family and expressed their thanks to all the support they received following the tragic death.
Burial took place in the adjoining cemetery under the shadow of the Cistercian Abbey and afterwards mourners were invited for refreshments in the Community Centre.