Úna, Ciara and Saoirse Bowden funeral: Husband and father pays tribute to his 'beautiful girls'

A Eulogy from David Bowden was read by his brother, Andrew, at the funeral Mass of the mother and daughters in St. Eunan’s Church, Raphoe where Una (née Carlin) hailed from.

The communities of Donegal, Galway and Mayo were plunged into mourning following the loss of the mother and two daughters, who were tragically killed in a road traffic collision in Mayo on March 26.

Una was 47 years old, Ciara was 14 and Saoirse was just nine.

David told how it was ‘hard to put into words what the feeling is to lose your whole family in one go’.

He outlined Úna’s life, her school days and multiple degrees. They met in 2003 and married in Zambia, where he is from. Both girls were born in South Africa and they, along with Úna, moved to Galway in 2018 when she was diagnosed with breast cancer, which she fought for a year, undergoing chemotherapy and radiotherapy.

Úna, he said, was an ‘excellent mother’ who was ‘truly quite feisty’ and ‘above all, she was beautiful’.

Her girls were ‘her world’.

"Úna, was my soul mate, my confidante and my world is so empty without her.”

The girls had moved into their new home just three weeks before they died and David was due to fly home to spend their first night in it as a family when he received the news they had been tragically killed.

Ciara, said David, loved sports and her friendships were her ‘everything’.

She adored dogs and her two Scottish terriers sadly died alongside her in the collision.

David told how it gives him ‘some solace’ they were together.

Ciara, he added, was ‘the most beautiful, wonderful girl turning into the most beautiful woman’.

Saoirse, said David, was the ‘cheekiest bundle of joy, the quirkiest, kindest little girl’.

Her world was ‘Harry Potter, games on her iPad, her cats and making fairy houses in the woods.’

"I know she was wearing her Harry Potter jumper in the accident and I hope and pray this has taken her into the magical world she so envisaged.

"She has such a quick wit and great craic and made us all laugh.”

Addressing the girls’ friends, David said they would not want them to be sad and added how they’d ask them to be ‘kind, nice and above all, considerate of others’.

"Please take that away with you and act on it in their memory’.

Ciara’s best friend, Amelie, also read a Eulogy, in which she told how Ciara had an ‘incredible joy and excitement for life.’

"Seeing her smile would make your day 10 times better.’

She and Saoirse ‘loved each other so much’ and Una was ‘the best mum anyone could ever have’.

Raphoe Parish priest Father Eamon Kelly told those gathered at the Requiem Mass how, on March 26, ’in a split second, life changed forever’.

"What would we not give to see again one of their smiles.

"What a terrible tragedy to happen to a family, as a dad looked forward to coming home on a holiday with his girls, and his girls looking forward to sharing time with their dad, in their just-finished new house.”

Father Kelly said that the support shown to the family is deeply appreciated, and added how the day they died will be ‘forever etched in our minds’.

"An ordinary, uneventful morning paved the devastation that lay ahead. Every life in this building and every life watching and listening into us was shook with the hardest of sorrows when the news filtered in of the loss of three young lives, that only had 71 years of life between them.

“Words such as heartache and grief and sorrow do not capture the emptiness, the pain, the unfairness, the lousiness of what took place that day, just outside of Claremorris.”

Father Kelly added how, after ‘winning her fight with breast cancer, one would have hoped for a clear passage through life for Una, but that is not the way things go’.

"With her no-nonsense directness, one did not come away from a meeting with Una wondering what she was thinking – you knew it.”

She fell head over heels in love with David, he added, and she knew was what precious in life.

“Today, even in the sadness, we are grateful Una had such a good influence on so many.”

Ciara, he said, had just turned 14 on March 5 and was an ‘ever caring big sister’.

‘Wee Saoirse’ was the ‘biggest Harry Potter fan in the whole, wide world and maybe even the biggest in the universe.’

Father Kelly addressed the children present in the Church and those watching online, including the girls’ school friends.

He told them how, sometimes ‘in life, things happen we have no control over,’ such as the accident that took away Una, Ciara and Saoirse.

Fr Kelly said while these make us feel sad, it is good to talk about those feelings and share them with your friends and grown ups.

He told them to remember the funny and silly moments and to laugh and cry with their friends about those things.

He added that Jesus is with them.

Father Kelly said each of us have our ‘soothing comforts’.

For Una it was Crossfit and exercise, for Ciara it was basketball and for Saoirse it was ‘hugging her cuddly white and pink unicorn.’

His soothing comfort is poetry and he concluded by reading a poem titled ‘Forever Love’.

It included the lines:

‘Una, Ciara, Saoirse,

You draw love from all

In life and death

True love is your call.’