Family hope funeral will take place this weekend
The remains of Stephen Gately were yesterday brought to a funeral parlour in Calvia. Photo: Steve Humphreys
Multimedia
Photo Gallery
Related Articles
Wednesday October 14 2009
BOYZONE members joined with Stephen Gately's family yesterday to organise the singer's funeral, which is expected to take place by the weekend.
The band visited the Gately family home and a nearby funeral parlour after they arrived back from Majorca.
Mikey Graham, Ronan Keating, Shane Lynch and Keith Duffy all left the island late on Monday but will return back to accompany Mr Gately's body home.
As of last night, Stephen's body was expected to be returned to Ireland on Friday, although every effort was being made to bring it back earlier.
Family spokesman Gerald Kean said that progress could only be made after the results of yesterday's post mortem were released.
It is understood that the funeral will be held on Friday if his body arrives in on Thursday.
Otherwise, the funeral will be held on Saturday, with the service taking place in St Laurence O'Toole's Church on Sherriff Street, yards from where Stephen grew up and near to where his parents live.
"On behalf of the family, I'd like to add that it's a load off their minds that the results of the autopsy confirmed that Stephen's death was due to natural causes," said Kean.
Messages
"They would also like to thank the thousands of people who have sent messages of support from around Ireland and the world."
Earlier, band manager Louis Walsh publicly spoke at length for the first time about Stephen's death.
Walsh said he hoped that a new album recorded by Boyzone would be released and revealed that Stephen was close to fulfilling one of his life ambitions -- landing a role in the musical 'Jersey Boys', which is based on 1960s group The Four Seasons, just before he died.
"All Stephen lived for was singing music, be it in the West End, be it in Boyzone, that's all he ever wanted to do," Mr Walsh told RTE Radio. "And his big thing was to do 'Jersey Boys'.
"He went for the audition and he got down to the final two and he said to me last week, 'that's the only thing I ever want to do'."
He also remembered picking Stephen for Boyzone.
"He walked in, he was like a popstar. Girls loved him; Stephen was the real heart-throb in the early days. He came from Sherriff Street and he was a very nice, working class kid.
"We put the band together and against all odds we made it. We have a great relationship. The boys are like his family now. They were incredibly close -- the four boys were like four daddies to him."
- Fiach Kelly
Irish Independent
