RIP Michaela McAreavey

[donelli]

My sympathies to both the families on such a loss in tragic circumstances.
Do hope they gain strength to get through this difficult place for them in the support of their friends and family. 

[seafoid]

It is good that at least they can grieve with the body at home this weekend. Well done to the Irish diplomats involved as well as the Mauritius authorities and the airlines for facilitating such a speedy return of the remains. 

[Minder]

I would love not to see a single photo or second of video camera footage of the wake, the removal or the funeral but unfortunately these days the media have no morales and no doubt there will be a huge presence of photographers, reporters and cameramen at the funeral taking close-up photos of the grieving families.

I actually think the television media (i havent read any papers) have dealt with the past week well. As far as i can see they have heeded Micky Hartes request on Tuesday and have given both families their privacy. There is huge interest in Micheala Hartes  death and subsequent criminal proceedings. The family gave the media permission to film the body leaving the airport today. Now if they start hassling the family for interviews that is a different matter, but i cant see that happening. There are photographers at funerals that have a lot less profile than this one, so as long as they keep a respectful distance i dont see a problem. I am certain if the Harte or Mc Areavey family didnt want any press/tv on the day of the funeral that their wish would be heeded, and that request may come yet.

[sammymaguire]

Have to agree with that Minder, I think the two families have been shown a massive amount of respect since the terrible news broke on Monday and with massive concern in the local and wider communities of both families and an international news story, I have not seen or heard a broadcast that was tasteless or over-stepped the mark. Hopefully they can keep it this way for a few more days at least

[tonesfirstandlast]

I would love not to see a single photo or second of video camera footage of the wake, the removal or the funeral but unfortunately these days the media have no morales and no doubt there will be a huge presence of photographers, reporters and cameramen at the funeral taking close-up photos of the grieving families.

I actually think the television media (i havent read any papers) have dealt with the past week well. As far as i can see they have heeded Micky Hartes request on Tuesday and have given both families their privacy. There is huge interest in Micheala Hartes  death and subsequent criminal proceedings. The family gave the media permission to film the body leaving the airport today. Now if they start hassling the family for interviews that is a different matter, but i cant see that happening. There are photographers at funerals that have a lot less profile than this one, so as long as they keep a respectful distance i dont see a problem. I am certain if the Harte or Mc Areavey family didnt want any press/tv on the day of the funeral that their wish would be heeded, and that request may come yet.

I agree, I think all the media have dealt with awful tragedy particularly well and in a very dignified manner. I would like to compliment the UTV and BBC for the manner in which they have conducted this whole sad occasion and I'm sure they will continue with the same dignity until after the funeral.

My sincerest sympathies to two great families.

[EC Unique]

As far as I am aware there are members of the club preventing the media from intruding on the privacy of the family. With out these efforts I am afraid the above comments would not apply.

[johnpower]

Sincere condolences to both families , May she rest in peace .

[Don Johnson]

Great turnout at a mass in Laurencetown tonight for John and the McAreavey and Harte families. The church was full with a lot of people standing at the back as well.

Was very emotional with pictures of Michaela at the altar as well as John's Tullylish jersey.

The Tullylish chairman spoke very well at the end and one of the player's recited a poem he himself had written about Michaela.

If that was the turnout for a mass like that, I can't begin to think how many will be at the funeral on Monday.

[new devil]

Also a great turnout at a special mass in the Bronx for Micheala...The priest spoke very well about her with some touching words

[Fear ón Srath Bán]

From Cumann Mhic Sioghair, An Srath Bán:

Strabane Sigersons and Strabane Shamrock s Hurling Clubs have come together to organise a memorial Mass in the Church of the Immaculate Conception, Strabane on Monday night 18th January @ 7.30pm for the late Michaela McAreavey (nee Harte).
The Mass is for the entire community of Strabane and the surrounding districts to come along and pay their respects and to remember Michaela and the Harte and McAreavey families in their thoughts and prayers.
Everyone is urged to spread the news about this Mass to your family, relatives, friends and felow Gaels.
If you know anyone who is on Facebook, Twitter or any other means of communication then please feel free to pass the word about.
Fáilte Mhór - Everyone Welcome.

[Baile an tuaigh]

A friend text-ed me tonight from the Ballygawley round about told me how terrible it was to see the hearse. A place where so many Sam home comings truly begin.

S... is for sorrow Ireland shares
T.. is for tears that show how much we care
A.. is for the angel who went to heaven above
R.. is for the radiance of her Irish eyes of love

This star is just a new one, and will shine brightly in heavens sky, it will always be the brightest and will always catch your eye. So for all of you who loved her grieve with you. Your not alone ALL IRELAND share your sorrow for OUR WEE PRINCESS. From Tyrone (Michaela)

Mass being said for Michaela at St Tarcissus and Old St Pats both in Chicago this Sunday

[EC Unique]

St ciarans school ballygawley is being used for parking and mini buses will shuttle people to and from wake house.

[RedandGreenSniper]

I would love not to see a single photo or second of video camera footage of the wake, the removal or the funeral but unfortunately these days the media have no morales and no doubt there will be a huge presence of photographers, reporters and cameramen at the funeral taking close-up photos of the grieving families.

I actually think the television media (i havent read any papers) have dealt with the past week well. As far as i can see they have heeded Micky Hartes request on Tuesday and have given both families their privacy. There is huge interest in Micheala Hartes  death and subsequent criminal proceedings. The family gave the media permission to film the body leaving the airport today. Now if they start hassling the family for interviews that is a different matter, but i cant see that happening. There are photographers at funerals that have a lot less profile than this one, so as long as they keep a respectful distance i dont see a problem. I am certain if the Harte or Mc Areavey family didnt want any press/tv on the day of the funeral that their wish would be heeded, and that request may come yet.

The thing about the media is they are serving a demand. There's a lot of people who won't be able to make the funeral who, by seeing it on TV, will feel they can mourn that way. It is how I feel anyway. If done right, media coverage of this funeral will be a great tribute to Michaela to the wider world but I would worry about what EC says, that some might not know where the line is.

We had our club dinner dance last night and it was mentioned at the outset by our chairman and was something a lot of people were talking about, the level of shock was still huge.

[FairyWaterDuke]

The Irish Times - Saturday, January 15, 2011

Heroic Harte's resilience never more needed

SIDELINE CUT: No strangers to tragedy, Tyrone and Mickey Harte are again called upon to cope with dreadful, heartbreaking circumstances, writes KEITH DUGGAN

OH, TYRONE: Gaelic Games has a habit of producing wonderful teams whose spirit long outlasts the thrill of their accomplishments in September All-Irelands. But has any Irish sports team or manager ever brought such joy to its people while carrying not just the weight of great expectation but a staggering litany of heartbreak? Has any sporting figure been required to find the perfect words on impossibly sad and inexplicable days as frequently as Mickey Harte has over the past 13 years?

Even on this unfathomably dark and cruel week for his family, he has somehow found it within himself to find words that served, first and foremost, to console others.

Resilience and grace under pressure have always been at the heart of the immortal Tyrone football days which Harte has presided over since 1997. From the emotional afternoon in September 1998, (nobody who stood around a grinning Cormac McAnallen near the wire at the old Canal End tunnel listening to the kid – for that is what he was then – rhapsodise about what the day meant will forget it) to the amber-lit September Sunday in 2008 when Tyrone won their third senior All-Ireland of the decade, those teams with the Red Hand crest seemed to play in irrepressible bursts of inspiration and instinct that no other team could hope to equal.

Lest it be forgotten, the 1997/98 Tyrone minors played through the confusion and grief of the death of their team-mate Paul McGirr after an accidental collision in the Ulster championship. Lest it be forgotten, they somehow managed to win the Ulster title anyway and between drawing the All-Ireland semi-final against Kerry and turning up for the replay in Parnell Park against Kerry (on the afternoon that Princess Diana was buried in London), their young midfielder Kevin Hughes lost his sister in a car accident.

Lest it be forgotten, Mickey Harte's first All-Ireland final – after that harrowing summer – ended with his trying to console a young team who had emptied themselves and still lost to a wonderful Laois team. Lest it be forgotten, he was so exhausted by the emotion of that summer that he might have stopped then but for the intervention and persuasion of a number of people, including his young daughter.

And, lest it be forgotten, when they did win that first All-Ireland a year later, it was Laois they beat and Laois boys who formed a guard of honour to salute them from the field. And lest it be forgotten too, they had to return to an Omagh that was still obliterated by that terrible August bombing. Those young footballers were the first reason that anyone in the town or county had cause to cheer about life since that day. They have been cheering since.

It was the beginning of a magnificent football era, a period in the history of Tyrone which transcended sport. And Mickey Harte has been on the sideline for all of the best days and worst days.

Mickey Harte is no easy man to categorise: impeccably polite and absolutely determined, reasoned but fearless about speaking his mind, a pioneer, deeply religious and utterly open to learning about sport and about life from diverse sources. And stubborn too! Harte has become such a respected manager that his playing days are often overlooked. Lest it be forgotten, he played on a fine Tyrone minor team in 1972 but opted out to study the following year and missed out on a rare year of Ulster minor and senior success. (The minors won that year's All-Ireland, a title the county would not win again until '98).

And lest it be forgotten, Harte was the man at the epicentre of the furious row which saw his local club, Glencull, exiled from all GAA activity because of the kind of common row that flares in all parishes all the time. "The problem was the boy who was sent off with me was allowed to represent his club at handball the following day and I couldn't see how that was fair. I had the unconditional support of the Glencull players so I walked," he said. This was one evening in 2004 in the Kelly Inn, the famous roadside restaurant near his home. "People might say hello if they met in a shop or a pub," he remembered. "But just about."

The row began in 1982 and people on both sides thought they had the moral authority and nobody blinked for almost a decade. Harte and others missed out on a promising football career because of it. One of the chief reasons the feud ended was that they realised in Glencull that they might have something special in their hands in a youngster named Peter Canavan. People began talking and out of that came Errigal Chiaráin and a new era of splendour.

And that experience was important because Mickey Harte said of that period in isolation: "I learned more about life in that period than in any other period of management. It taught me a lot about loyalty and friendship and principle."

And he took those virtues – those family virtues – with him into management. He didn't know then, of course, just how much he would need them. That evening in Kelly's he laughed when he recalled his first minor trials. Michaela went along with him: 240 kids showed up to volunteer their services for the Red Hand. That was the beginning. When he appeared on the Late Late Show a few weeks after Tyrone's 2008 All-Ireland win, he was accompanied by Michaela who noted that in the 17 years since that first trial, she had not missed a championship game. It was not, she pointed out with a smile, the record of a "fair-weather fan".

It was certainly not that. Who can guess at the countless hours the Harte family have spent talking about football in the same house that thousands of people will, over today and tomorrow, visit in such sombre, heartbreaking circumstances? Who can guess the number of happy football journeys the Hartes have made from their home?

Go back to 2003, to Tyrone's first glittering senior year. Inside the Tyrone dressingroom in Croke Park, all is happy bedlam. Mickey Harte is there and his son, Mark, who played on that team. Stephen O'Neill, one of the class of '97 is saying "Paul McGirr will be happy in heaven tonight". Cormac McAnallen is holding court elsewhere. In the middle of the room, Chris Lawn, a veteran of so many bitterly disappointing days in Tyrone colours, stands not quite able to believe that this is happening; that Tyrone are champions of the whole of Ireland. He holds his hands out at this young crew that Mickey Harte has put together and he marvels "Why not? Why not go on?"

They would go on all right, all of them, through extraordinary days that made them feel like they could travel no higher and then through other terrible days that came out of the blue with unaccountable swiftness.

Their best days are safe and untouchable. And through the worst of them, Mickey Harte and his family and all of the young football players that he has guided down the years have behaved with a grace that has been humbling.

And none of that will be forgotten, not for many, many lifetimes.

[Carmen Stateside]

I would love not to see a single photo or second of video camera footage of the wake, the removal or the funeral but unfortunately these days the media have no morales and no doubt there will be a huge presence of photographers, reporters and cameramen at the funeral taking close-up photos of the grieving families.

I actually think the television media (i havent read any papers) have dealt with the past week well. As far as i can see they have heeded Micky Hartes request on Tuesday and have given both families their privacy. There is huge interest in Micheala Hartes  death and subsequent criminal proceedings. The family gave the media permission to film the body leaving the airport today. Now if they start hassling the family for interviews that is a different matter, but i cant see that happening. There are photographers at funerals that have a lot less profile than this one, so as long as they keep a respectful distance i dont see a problem. I am certain if the Harte or Mc Areavey family didnt want any press/tv on the day of the funeral that their wish would be heeded, and that request may come yet.

The thing about the media is they are serving a demand. There's a lot of people who won't be able to make the funeral who, by seeing it on TV, will feel they can mourn that way. It is how I feel anyway. If done right, media coverage of this funeral will be a great tribute to Michaela to the wider world but I would worry about what EC says, that some might not know where the line is.
We had our club dinner dance last night and it was mentioned at the outset by our chairman and was something a lot of people were talking about, the level of shock was still huge.

Agree totally.