Scottish Catholic Observer

Only 19 days after she was married at St Malachy’s Church, outside Ballygawley, County Tyrone, the body of Ms McAreavey was taken back for her funeral.

Thousands lined the route as the funeral cortege made its way through the countryside with the hearse flanked by members of the Tyrone Gaelic football team, managed by Michaela’s father Mickey Harte.

The teacher (above) was murdered last week in a hotel room in Mauritius after she had apparently disturbed thieves who were robbing her honeymoon apartment.

Mr Harte helped support his son-in-law, John McAreavey, who had married 27-year-old Michaela on December 30, as they walked behind the hearse.

Her uncle, the Bishop John McAreavey of Dromore, had celebrated the wedding and told 300 mourners at the church—and many more watching on video screens outside on Monday that the recently married couple lived for each other.

“Their hopes for the future were bound up with each other,” Bishop McAreavey said, and added that the entire country had been shaken by the tragedy.

“Even those of us who are older and who have had some experience of tragedy have been shaken to the core by what has happened.

“We are still in a state of shock.”

Ireland’s president Mary McAleese, deputy first minister of Northern Ireland Martin McGuinness and Cardinal Seán Brady, primate of the Catholic Church in Ireland, were among mourners at the funeral Mass.