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Updated at 2pm
A LONE PIPER played traditional airs outside the church in the southside Dublin suburb of Balally this morning, as mourners gathered ahead of the second funeral service for the victims of the Carrickmines tragedy.
Thomas and Sylvia Connors, their children Jim (5), Christy (3) and baby Mary (5 months) were killed in the halting site blaze in the early hours of Saturday 10 October.
Their funeral service took place two days after the other five victims of the fire were laid to rest, following a service in Bray.
Funeral
Four-year-old Tom Connors, who lost his parents and three siblings in the tragedy, was released from hospital only yesterday. He and his brother Michael (5) – who was unharmed - will now be cared for by their grandparents.
Crowds began gathering at the Church of the Ascension around an hour before the funeral mass commenced, making their way inside from around 11am.
Other mourners – along with members of the media – gathered outside, where proceedings were relayed via loudspeaker.
Bishop Ray Field represented Archbishop Diarmuid Martin at today’s requiem mass, which was celebrated by Derek Farrell of the Parish of the Travelling People.
Taoiseach Enda Kenny was represented by his aide-de-camp Commandant Kieran Carey. President Michael D Higgins was also represented, and a number of local politicians attended – as did Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams.
A group of six priests – including clergy who presided over the baptisms of the Connors children – concelebrated the mass.
Assistant Chief Fire Officer Denis Kiely – one of the first emergency service members on the scene at the tragedy – represented Dublin Fire Brigade.
Delivering the homily, Fr Farrell said “an earthquake of devastating grief” had struck on the Glenamuck Road in Carrickmines on 10 October.
“From the epicentre of tragedy that visited the Connors home on the Glenamuck Road, shock waves spread out through the land.
“Shock waves, from the devastation of the deceased and injured, to the bereaved Connors, Lynch, and Gilbert families, to the local Travellers and neighbours, to the wider Traveller community, to the whole wider Irish nation, and on to many countries around the world.
“In an echo of the Gospel account of the death of Jesus on the Cross, ‘a darkness came over the whole land’.”
Fr Farrell said the Connors, Lynch and Gilbert families knew only too well the anguish of “waiting for your loved ones to be given back to you” adding:
“This time of waiting is over, the time of grieving, a tsunami of grief, is only just begun.”
Connors family
Thomas and Sylvia, as a couple, were seen as “a match made in Heaven” Fr Farrell said. They were “deeply loving and devoted to each other, they never left each other’s side”.
“Married nearly eight years, they first met in Bray.
“After their wedding, they moved in immediately with the extended family in Burton Hall, then for a short while in Rathmichael, before the move over seven years ago to their Glenamuck home.
“They were, it’s said, ‘the best father and mother that any children could ask for’.
“Thomas loved his family, his family was his life.”
Sylvia, he said, “in the words of her mother-in-law Jojo, was ‘the best girl you could ask for’”.
“You wouldn’t see a better person, and the same could be said for Thomas.
“Before marrying Thomas, Sylvia took very good care of her now late ailing mother, Mary. Anywhere you’d see her mother you’d see Sylvia. She loved being a mother herself, and was a very good mother. Her husband and her children were her life.
“Jim [5 years], loved to stay with his grandparents Jim and Jojo. He was a lovely boy, a very happy boy.
“Christy [3 years] was full of life, by times quiet, a big boy for his age, Daddy and Mammy’s little boy, and up until Baby Mary’s arrival, ‘the babbie’. Jim and Christy were very close brothers, very close to their aunts and uncles, and very clever for their age, and both were waiting on the birth of their baby sister.
“Baby Mary was aged just 5 months. When Baby Mary came she was much treasured by the whole family.”
Empathy
Echoing the words of parish priest Fr Dermot Lane at last night’s removal service, Fr Farrell took the opportunity to speak of the wider issues raised for Irish society in the days since the tragedy.
“We must learn, above all, to walk in the shoes of the other if we are to develop genuinely inclusive and pluralistic societies,” Fr Lane said last evening.
“Many of us in the settled community have failed to walk with empathy in the shoes of our brothers and sisters in the Traveller Community.”
Speaking today, Fr Farrell added:
“We in the Parish of the Travelling People, and I know the same for the various National and local Traveller organisations and groups, are open for dialogue and progress.
“A generous and committed response is needed from all quarters and at all levels – personal, community, Church, and State. The building of mutual relationship, respect and understanding, recognition and valuing of identity is possible and with goodwill and determination, within our grasp.
“Perhaps for now we can draw consolation and hope from the good we have witnessed and must build on, and from the Resurrection of Jesus that tells us that love is stronger than death, love calls us to eternal life.”
Fr Farrell’s homily was met with applause from the mourners gathered inside the church.
Message from Pope Francis
A message from the Pope was also read to the congregation by Bishop Field. He repeated the words expressed at Tuesday’s funeral in Bray for the five other victims of the tragedy.
“Pope Francis, having learned of the horrific fire in Carrickmines, expresses his deep sadness over this terrible tragedy,” he said.
“The Holy Father prays especially for those who have died, and he wishes to assure all their family members, their friends, and the whole Traveller community, of his spiritual closeness and sympathy at this very difficult time.”
Burial
The remains of Thomas and Sylvia Connors and their three children will be taken to Wexford this afternoon, with prayers to take place at the Church of the Assumption on Bride Street in Wexford tomorrow at midday followed by burial at Crosstown Cemetery.
What qualifications/training are needed for other jobs paying £10 an hour? McDonald’s is a low skilled manual job with easily replaceable staff hence low wages. Wages reflect level of training, experience and scarcity of labour.
@Kal Ipers: Ask anybody what it’s like to work in McDonalds. It’s not an easy job by any means. It’s unskilled but it’s stressful and non stop. People who work so hard deserve to be paid more than pittance. Hard workers deserve to be able to afford to survive when they’re working full time.
@James O’Shea: if they aren’t happy they can leave and be easily replaced, this is at the core of why they aren’t worth £10 an hour.
@James O’Shea: You aren’t paid wages because a job is tiring or stressful. I know what it is like to work in the service industry having done my time. Much more physically demanding than my current job. It was stressful but nowhere near the levels of stress I have now. Working hard doesn’t mean you get paid well if you are easily replaceable. McDonald’s are not always busy either.
@James O’Shea: there’s always the option of a career move. These people have experience that would make them desirable to the likes of KFC, Pizza Hut, etc. They may stand a better chance at getting promoted & earning more.
It’s also worth pointing out that the UK claimed to have been out of recession about 4-5 years ago, so it stands to reason that they should have plenty of options for unskilled employment by now
Aldi and Lidl all pay more and there’s no more skill involved. It must be nice for all of you with the brains and cushy jobs to be slating these people. Many of you on here constantly suggest that everyone should work and buy their own home, you try it on zero hour contracts.
@Ian James Burgess: aldi and Lidl are pretty picky on their employees. They all multi-task and flick between the floor, the tills etc.
Yes they pay more but only for better employees.
Why would a place that is hiring worse employees pay the same rate?
@Ian James Burgess: They pay more precisely because not everyone can do the job. The through put on an Aldi till is way faster than that in McDonalds. If you can’t keep up they let the staff go but most quit due to the speed required. The shelf stickers get paid less than till operators in Aldi too.
@Ian James Burgess: nobody is slating McDonalds employees. It’s a hard job and character building but it’s also relatively low-skilled. It’s entry level and not meant as the kind of job you raise a family on. If you want better pay you have to constantly be upskilling and looking for new angles. If you think you’re not being paid in accordance with the value you bring, test your worth on the jobs market. If there’s a demand for your skill you will be paid accordingly. Economics 101.
@Kal Ipers: Apple’s and oranges kal, they are different jobs in different industries.
@Kal Ipers: believe me not everyone can do mcdonalds either I’ve done my time during one in college and I’ve seen people leave after 3hrs into their first shift because they couldn’t handle the work pace and stress levels. They deserve at least a bit of a better wage than they are getting especially due to the frequency of injuries. Or if not that at least a minimum amount of hours they can get per week.
@Shannon Cassidy: as Clint Eastwood would say: deserve’s got nothing to do with it. Labour is a commodity like any other and its price fluctuates in accordance with supply and demand. If you want bettet pay, get a skill that’s in demand but is relatively scarce.
@Shannon Cassidy: that applies to every job. McDonalds staff are low skill jobs easy to fill. Supply of the staff is easy to achieve at the wage they provide. No reason to raise the wage.
There is something to be said about the living wage but expecting minimum wages to provide a living wage is a new concept. The economic expectation has changed to be very unrealistic. Anybody expecting minimum wages to provide a living is crazy. There is a place for supplemental income and that is what minimum rates of pay is.
Any company that uses zero hour contracts and pays minimum (as opposed to living) wages are human rights abusers and deserve to be driven out of business.
Good for these workers.
Hopefully it will inspire the staff being exploited in the other shops.
@Colin Morris: No they are not human rights abusers, that has a very definite meaning and should not be belittled. Zero hour contracts have their place but not in many businesses using them such as McDonald’s
@Colin Morris: that hyperbolic nonsense is deeply insulting to people who’ve suffered real human rights abuses.
@Johnny Gunn: OK – McDonalds does not engage in human rights abuse.
They engage in worker exploitation and abuse.
Is that a nicer description.
@Colin Morris: no it is still inaccurate hyperbolic nonsense. If that were true the court system would have seen to them long ago. Drama queen.
@Colin Morris: I run a business in a country where zero hours contracts are illegal. I have people who would gladly take the job on a zero hours contract. For me to take extra staff on a full time permanent contract would kill the business. So I have two choices. 1. I do nothing, turn away business and people who would gladly work are left out of a job. 2. I hire them on a full-time permanent job and sent the business bust…then everyone is out of a job. Either way this law is putting people out of a job. Now that is worker expolitation…it exploits the workers who are working and paying tax to pay for benefits for people who want to work but the law does not allow it.
@Mary Murphy: exactly and this is the fatal flaw in democracy. Politicians bribe their bases with goodies and in the process do long term damage to the economy with these insane laws.
@Mary Murphy: Or you could hire the staff on part time contracts – but if their contract is for 15 hours a week then you pay them for 15 hours a week.
A zero hours contract is worker exploitation as it means that your workers are obliged to be available but have no certainty in hours.
Businesses which use zero hour contracts and pay minimum (as opposed to living) wages need to be driven out of business.
Human beings are not commodities.
@Colin Morris: human may not be commodities but their labour is.
@Squarepeg01: zero hours contracts commodifies humans and not their labour.
Any employer who uses zero hour contracts and minimum wages deserve to be driven out of business.
@Colin Morris: and what do I do to make income in November when the business is closed? Or in August when there is enough work to go around that I could give them 50 hours if they wanted it?
It is these trade unionist rabble-rousers who will ruin what was, for decades, a handy part-time job for many young people! How sad and destructive.
@John Reid: The only thing less substantial and even more unhealthy than a meal at Macdonalds is the rate of pay. ‘Handy’?
@John Reid: McDonalds is hardly a “handy” job. If you knew what you were talking about you wouldn’t be saying such nonsense. I’ve worked in McDonalds and they drive you into the ground. It’s extremely stressful and you’re treated like dirt. You’re run off your feet non stop. Cop on.
@John Reid: even handier if they’re paid fairly and can plan around a set amount of hours
@James O’Shea: My brother and friends work in McDonald’s while I worked in a bar. On my own I took more money than the entire restraunt did in a shift for the same length of time but the bar was open for less time. They told about all the times there were more staff than customers. Maybe you need more experience to know what being worked into the ground is like doing 70 hour weeks with no overtime which doesn’t happen in McDonald’s.
@John Reid: FFS John, they’re looking for a tenner an hour. If you can’t pay that, you don’t have a business model.
@Benny McHale: why should they? They’re a business not a charity.
@Squarepeg01: They are a ‘business’ therefore they pay peanuts and run the staff into the ground? Some model.
@andrew: if it’s a bad business model it will fail, not least because no one will want to work there. Is that what’s happening?
@andrew: run into the ground, is one persons view of working there. I have never ever heard of people I know working there suggest that at all. Most said it was boring and there was nothing to do. Is McDonalds packed every time you enter? I haven’t seen a packed McDonald’s in decades and that was when there was only one in the country
If a company cannot afford to pays its staff a living wage, then it does not deserve to be in business.
If a firm which COULD pay a living wage but refuses – like McDonalds – then it is engaging in revolting human exploitation and deserves to be boycotted.
These are not radical lefty ideals – these are just principles of human decency.
@Colin Morris: no, they are lefty feelies masquerading as ‘ideas’.
@Squarepeg01:
Wrong.
A company that cannot pay its staff a living wage shouldn’t be in business.
A company that uses zero hours contracts is engaged in worker exploitation.
@Colin Morris: no facts, no reasoning. Just feelings.
McPicket
The “screw you, get a better job” brigade can pontificate all they want, but let’s be honest, they’re not asking for a whole lot. Not sure how anybody survives in London on £10 an hour.
@O Swetenham: I was paid €8.20 an hour when I worked in McDonalds. A year later, I was working in TK Maxx for €10.60 yet I found the pace in TK much less stressful than McDs.
@O Swetenham: if they’re asking for more than the value their employer believes they bring to the job then they’re asking for too much.
@Squarepeg01: In the race to the bottom no-one is a winner.
Minimum wage is exploitation.
Any employer who does not pay its staff a living wage deserves to go out of business.
Human beings are not commodities despite what neo-liberalism pretends,.
@Colin Morris: what race to the bottom? Look at the abundance all around us and how relatively inexpensive most things are (excl property) that people even a century ago could only dream of. Even the homeless guy has shoes on his feet. All thanks to the productive power and efficiencies of capitalism. Everyone wins. An employer’s value is not based on the jobs he provides but on the products / services he adds to the economy which improve people’s lives.
@Colin Morris: For all this talk from whom and what do you buy? Do you make sure all the workers are paid a fair wage on everything you buy? Most retailers pay minimum wage and do you think the worker that made the equipment you are posting these comments on was paid a fair wage?
@Squarepeg01: accommodation is not inexpensive.
A living wage is not a luxury.
Employers who pay minimum wage need to be driven out of business.
@Simon Murphy: where do you buy goods and how much are staff paid?
If they get their way this is their future http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user5/imageroot/2017/06/23/mcdonalds-kiosks-600.jpg
@Barry Davidson: those computerised ordering systems still need the cooks and the counter staff to put it on trays and make drinks.
Awful to think that these employees are paid so lowly. Perhaps they could do away with the”0″ hour contracts for starters. …most ridiculous contract ever!
@smudge: Give it time and it will be robots cooking things to order.
@smudge: most chefs in good restaurants earn less than £10 per hour. Mcdoanld staff will be replaced, the food there could easily be cooked and wrapped by machine
@smudge: McDonald’s say food is “freshly prepared” in store, no mentioning of cooking.
And here comes automated McDonald’s.
There’s already automated McDonald’s around. Not sure if they’ve hit Ireland yet but I don’t like using it tbh
@John Mc Grath: they’re dreadful! I much prefer ordering from a human being.
@Maria Hickey-Fagan: I’m glad not having to talk to human beings.
Back in my days, fast food such as McDonald was for students who wants to have a side job for extra money. Please try to find a trade skill that you can call career and not flipping burgers. Before anyone judge me, to US from the Philippines I worked in a warehouse making manila folders and went to school in the morning.
@worldpeace: You worked in the Philippines making Manila folders? You made manila folders in Manila? That’s vanilla!
Labour unions tried this stunt in the states and fast food restaurants have started replacing workers with self-service electronic ordering systems.
Those McDonald’s that they are striking on are Franchise’s. It will have little to zero effect on the McDonald’s Corp. It is the franchise owners that are paying these people.
It’s also a lot of the franchises that are failing . It’s a problem McDonald’s lump on to the franchisees. They don’t help them if they’re struggling . McDonald’s Corp def are part of this problem. But if the staff are successful in their protest you can expect the price of a happy meal go up as McDonald’s prob won’t absorb any of it (lower rates for franchisees)
@Ronan McDermott: a eurosaver hamburger costs less than 5c to make due to the pricing of the ingredients when they buy from the warehouses. I know this because I worked in McDonalds and had to order stock for a manager multiple times.
You can attempt to say they will need to up the price of the menu but they really don’t. They make over 150% profit from every item on their menu.
@Shannon Mcg: So they sold every burger they bought? How much does the yearly franchise fee cost and the electricity? You knew the purchase price and that does not equate to the cost of giving it to the customer. So to say 150% is completely wrong and a huge level of ignorance
@ Shannon mcg. So they make 7.5 cents off a eurosaver burger by your calculations . Lol. How much of that does the franchisee get ?
Didn’t Mcdonald do well to exist 40 years without union Interference.
If you’re not happy with the job, then change job!. It’s the worker that needs to change or learn a new skill. Supply and demand for labour will keep McJobs low paying.
The formula of McDonalds is cheap and unhealthy food sold with the low overhead of cheap and exploited labour generating massive exploitative profits for the owners.
@Fiona deFreyne: if people willingly take the jobs, where is the exploitation?
@Fiona deFreyne: The food itself maybe cheap to make. But you still have to add in the the other costs. The cost of the franchise, rent for the premises, utility bills, wages, taxes and rates, insurance, and then whats left for the franchise owner to make a living with.
£10 an hour. It’s not that much money so just pay them. The corporate welfare banking class are getting billions while the average worker is getting screwed. And people wonder why Trump and Corbyn are popular. People a pissed off and it’s things like this push them over the edge.
@prop joe: What about all the people already getting £10 that have worked to obtain skills to get that money? Should they be paid more too?
@Kal Ipers: what job would that be? £10 an hour is pretty low for any type of work. McDonald’s was a place where teenagers used to work. So it would have to be cushy. Now it’s a production line, where everyone is pushed to the limit. It takes a certain type of person to be productive in that kind of environment. £10 an hour isn’t a lot.
@prop joe: it doesn’t matter what the other job is. Currently it pays more due to more expertise. What do you do when they are annoyed that an unskilled job is now paying the same. do you give them a pay rise?
@Kal Ipers: actually working in an environment like McDonald’s takes a certain skill set. It’s set up like a production line so all the parts must function correctly. Don t mistake skill set with productivity. Productive workers must be rewarded.
@prop joe: I don’t know why you can’t answer the question. McDonald’s is low skill easily replaceable staff. Not everybody can do it but so many can so labour is cheap. Not sure why people suddenly think minimum wage jobs are no longer supplemental income and are meant to be a full salary to live on.
I support these workers by boycotting McDonalds.
Actually I just don’t go there cause the food is rubbish, but I’m pretending it’s because I am taking the moral high ground. If McDonalds recognizes unions I might have to buy a big mac.
Greed has ruined these jobs they were great for students to make a little cash or school leavers to climb the career ladder. Now very few students work in these places and those who now take these unskilled jobs with low pay are people usually emigrants with families with zero contacts and living hard life’s were most goes on rent. We need a major overhaul of tax system and the way countries work together on isuess they need to do the same when getting big corporations to operate by all agreeing on the same tax rate and t and C’s.
Low pay, 0 hour contracts, high rent, no hope of a mortgage, pension at 75, water privatisation, data collection for sale…..these are all FG policy. Do not be surprised.
You won’t afford much rent or have any decent quality of life labouring in McDonalds. Dismal HR practices.
@Fiona deFreyne: that rent is so high is not McDonalds’s fault.
Well said Ian James Burgess
Kal Ipers ,Well,I am glad to be wrong on this occasion.I was under the impression that some large Retail stores still had these contracts TK Maxx came to mind .
Wages are lower in England, my daughter work’s as a care assistant in private hospital, in operating theaters and she gets £9.10 an hour…
But agree no zero hours working
Their boss is a clown anyway, what did they expect.
I’d like to see our Unions campaign to get rid of these zero hours contracts .
@Brian O Reilly: they already did they are illegal here. They are talking about the UK
McDonalds is total rubbish ,i never ever use them
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