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06 Sept 2025

WATCH: Local business owner speaks of 'paralysing' tragedy after final funeral of Clonmel collision

LOCAL BUSINESS owners and hoteliers closed their doors for the duration of each funeral of the four victims of the Clonmel car collision. 

On the afternoon of Saturday, September 2, the last of the young people was laid to rest. Zoey Coffey, 18, was buried today in Saint Patrick’s Cemetery, Clonmel, in a floral pink coffin which represented her favourite colour. 

Richie Fennessy, owner of Fennessy’s hotel directly across from St Peter and Paul’s Church, decorated a shrine outside of his hotel, along with his wife Esther, in dedication to the four victims of the collision who were buried over the last three days. 

Brother and sister Luke and Grace McSweeney also had their funeral mass in St Peter and Pauls Church on Friday, September 1. They were laid to rest alongside one another. 

Their friend who was with them in the car on the fatal night, Nicole Murphy, was first to be laid to rest on Thursday, August 31. 

All funerals of the four young people have now concluded, but as said by Richie, it was both a 'numbing and paralysing' tragedy for the town and he hopes they will never have to experience something similar 'ever again'.

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