Tributes at funeral mass to ‘loving, kind and caring’ Breda Walshe who ‘was a mother to everyone’

As a valued and treasured member of staff at the presbytery in Killarney, her death has left a void in the lives of parish priests across Killarney and across the Diocese as she looked after each and every one of them.

So too has her death left a huge void in the lives of her husband, Enda Walshe and daughters, Rebecca and Amy, and in that of her parents, Kathleen and Eddie and her siblings.

"She was motherly to everyone, she had a special warmth, she was loving and kind, caring and understanding. She made sacrifices for us all,” said Fr O’Brien.

"She always put people first, it was never about Breda .. Her good nature came to the top.”

He said that her sudden death after becoming ill  on Mother's day has “numbed the community and beyond”.

"All our reactions were the same, it can’t be true.”

Symbols of Breda’s life brought to the alter included a pair of shoes by her husband Enda to represent the many pairs she owned. A pack of Taytoes, another of her favourite things, was also brought to the alter along with an apron to represent her love of baking and cooking and on it the saying ‘Don’t mess with the chef’.

A coffee cake was also brought to the alter to also represent her talent at baking and looking after others and which was loved by the priests of the Killarney parish who came to visit the presbytery where she looked after not only those living there but those visiting too.

Flowers too were brought to the alter representing her love of nature and gardening and every Friday she bought or received a bunch.

Breda (50) was originally from Kilcummin and was known far and wide in Killarney and beyond, her mass heard.

Fr O’Brien said Killarney presbytery will no longer be the same without her.

"We were privileged to have Breda as part of  our team .. she always went the extra mile on our behalf, nothing was too much of an effort.

"She made our place a home .. made it a place where we wanted to be or a place we wanted to return to.”

"I’m going to be very selfish and say how difficult life is going to be without her.  Her death has created a void in our home and our lives and if we can say that after three years I wonder how her family feel.”

Her husband, Enda, summed up the void the he and the family feel with the words of a Michael Bublé song whom she loved:  My first, my last, my everything. And the answer to all my dreams You're my sun, my moon, my guiding star, my kind of wonderful that is what you are,” he said also recalling how they first met and the happy life they shared.

He said she was the best wife and mother who looked after them all just as she looked after the whole town through the years working in Mac's and more recently in Murphy’s.

He said that they had spent a lovely Mother’s day together in their home in Bridgefield before things took a turn for the worst and Breda was taken from them.

The mass heard that in keeping with her caring  nature her last gesture, thought she was not to know it,  was a family meal for all the family to end a great weekend following her father-in-law’s role as Grand Marshal in the St Patrick’s day parade.

Following her funeral mass Breda was cremated in the Island Crematorium in Cork.