Village mourns ordinary young man who met extraordinary fate
Michael Dwyer's father, Martin (left), carries his son's coffin from Terryglass church as his mother Caroline looks on
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"Who is Michael Dwyer?" asked Fr Michael Cooney plaintively.
The question floated from the pulpit but perhaps echoed the thoughts of many people beyond it who are at a loss to explain the 24-year-old's exceptionally violent death in Bolivia.
The 300 or so people gathered at the village church in Terryglass, north Tipperary, knew who Mr Dwyer was. He was one of them.
Amid all the confusion and outstanding questions surrounding his passing in far away South America, they clung to a few certainties of their own yesterday.
Bathed in spring sunshine, they had come to say goodbye to the Mike Dwyer they knew, an affable young neighbour, an accomplished sportsman and a dedicated son and brother.
They certainly didn't recognise the caricature being peddled by the Bolivian government: that the local man was part of an exotic international gang on a mission to kill President Evo Morales. That he died so far away in the dusty and little known city of Santa Cruz, 8,000 miles from home, was even more painful to some in the parish of Ballinderry, Killbarron and Terryglass.
Like some sort of nightmarish James Bond plot, Mr Dwyer's death was the antithesis of his rural upbringing in Broca, an idyllic setting in the shadow of the Slieve Bloom mountains. Here, he hurled for Shannon Rovers and helped out on the family farm.
Parish life revolves around civic pride and yesterday locals arriving at the Church of the Immaculate Conception filed past notices for the GAA, turf cutting and the Tidy Towns.
Bewildered
If the news of Mr Dwyer's death had bewildered this parish of 900, the details of how his death occurred have turned it inside out. "I want to begin by asking a simple question: Who is Michael Dwyer?" Fr Cooney had said. "That might be the Michael you know through the press and media and general talk over the last 10 days or I think more likely the Michael Dwyer from Broca and a hard-working family."
He was "a loving and well-loved son, the caring brother, the fun-loving school and college-goer, the friend in need, the party and good-times young man, the man who loved his car".
Mourners were led by Mr Dwyer's parents, Marty, an electrician, and Caroline, a pharmaceutical engineer. Next to them sat their remaining children, Aisling (25) Ciara (21) and Emmett (14), who dedicated the Coldplay song 'Fix You' to his big brother.
A red and white Shannon Rovers jersey adorned the coffin and when the offertory gifts came they symbolised the different passions of Mr Dwyer's life.
There was a family photograph and his degree scroll.
Mr Dwyer had gone on to complete a first-class master's degree in construction management at Galway and Mayo Institute of Technology and worked as a security guard on the Corrib gas project.
"He took what life threw at him and ran with it," his friend Ronan Fox told the congregation. That included setting off for Bolivia last year in search of work. There he was to die in extraordinary circumstances which have left his family with so many unanswered questions. Yesterday, though, all they wanted was to remember his qualities.
- Ciaran Byrne
