AS PARENTS WERE visiting the grave of their recently deceased 14-year-old son, thieves targeted their car, smashing a window and stealing the contents.
Patrick and Frances Murphy were visiting the grave of their son Micheál ’Haulie’ Murphy in St Dominic’s New Cemetery, Glanworth, Co Cork.
The boy, who was due to return to school next week at St Colman’s College, Fermoy, passed away last Friday after falling from a tractor in Mallow, Co Cork. He sustained serious head injuries in the fall and was pronounced dead a short time later.
The teen was buried on Monday and as his parents visited the grave two days later to say a prayer a handbag containing cash and a special relic was stolen from their car parked outside the cemetery.
“It takes evil, twisted minds to do something like this,” Fr Michael Corkery told TheJournal.ie. He is now appealing for those responsible to return the bag as soon as possible, suggesting they could drop it into a local church or maybe leave it at a priest’s house.
Fr Corkery said there has been a “spate of robberies in Cork cemeteries of late”. “My goodness me, it takes strange minds for people to do this… People are inside the cemetery obviously grieving the loss of someone and then they are targeted and robbed”.
“The relic that was also in the bag was special to Micheál’s mother and she would like it back,” he added.
Fr Corkery, who officiated at the funeral mass, visited the family yesterday following the robbery and said it had caused great upset.
Micheál was described as a “happy go lucky lad” that was “obsessed with agricultural machinery and would often go along with his father to his workplace,” Fr Cokery said. “He was really looking forward to doing his theory test for tractor driving license, more so than doing his Inter Cert [Junior Cert],” he added.
Micheál is survived by his father Patrick, mother Frances and younger brother Dean.
Anyone with information about the robbery can contact Mitchelstown Garda Station on 025 84833, any garda station or the garda confidential line on 1-800-666-111.
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