London: A close-knit Irish community have lined the streets to honour an Australian man who was among 10 locals killed in petrol station explosion on Friday.
Mourners paid their respects to a grieving wife and son of James O’Flaherty, 48, who had popped in to fill his car at the Applegreen service station and shop in the village of Creeslough, Donegal.
James O’Flaherty, 48, originally from Sydney, died in the explosion that occurred at the Applegreen petrol station in Ireland.Credit:PA, Supplied
His wife Tracey and young son Hamish were comforted by relatives and friends at the Eternal Light Chapel of Rest in Letterkenny on Monday (London time). The grieving pair travelled in the same car as the coffin to the funeral home, Derrybeg, where O’Flaherty’s remains will then be removed on Tuesday to the family home in Dunfanaghy.
A guard of honour was formed outside the chapel by his wife colleagues from Letterkenny University Hospital, where she works as a nurse, outside the building as O’Flaherty’s coffin was carried out to the hearse.
O’Flaherty, who was originally from Sydney, had settled in the seaside town with his family, having worked as an engineer around the world.
Dr Dan Gill, who is a GP based in nearby Falcarragh, rushed to the scene of the explosion on Friday and said he did not expect to discover his neighbour O’Flaherty to be among the dead.
“We both built houses together quite near the village centre, he was a lovely man, quiet, humorous, he was from Australia and I’m also half Australian, so we had lots to talk about,” he told RTÉ’s Morning Ireland.
“He was very, very attached to his son Hamish, they were always around together. It’s just terrible. He married a lovely Donegal woman Tracey, I think they were living in Scotland before here and then they moved home.
“He’s an engineer, he worked from home so every time I drove in by the house, I could see him standing at a big bank of computers doing his job. I found out he had died when I got to the scene, it was shocking.
“When I got there, there was a lot of ambulance staff, the locals were there in force in a big, long line hauling out bricks. Most of the people with the major trauma had already left the scene which is a credit to the emergency services.”
Emergency services wave as they leave the scene of the Applegreen service station explosion.Credit:Getty
Both Britain’s King Charles III and Pope Francis have sent messages of condolence to Irish President Michael Higgins and the community following the tragedy.
The youngest victim was Shauna Flanagan Garwe, a five-year-old girl who had gone to buy a cake for her mother. She was killed with her father, Robert Garwe, 50. They were reported to have been on the forecourt of the petrol station when the explosion happened, causing the largest number of civilian casualties in the region in many years.
Eight others are in hospital with one man in his 20s fighting for his life.
O’Flaherty was an engineering director for a US company, with 25 years experience managing large, complex engineering projects globally, according to his Linkedin. He had formerly worked in Australia, France, Britain and the US.
He was a business graduate from the University of Tasmania and a graduate of software engineering from the University of New South Wales.
His funeral mass takes place on Wednesday in St Mary’s Church, Derrybeg, with burial afterwards in Magheragallon Cemetery. The funerals of two of the 10 victims will be held on Tuesday.
Ireland’s police, known as the Garda, have called members of the National Bureau of Criminal Investigation to the site to aid the local investigation team as it tries to establish what caused the explosion.
Investigators told local media they were keeping an open mind as they attempt to establish what happened, but they suspect an accidental gas leak had caused the explosion.
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