Tragic scenes at Cork farmer and little daughter’s funeral after double drowning

American wife deeply grieved at funeral mass and at graveside

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Rebecca McCarthy clutches her daughter’s favorite toy as she walks behind the coffin at the West Cork funeral for the three-year-old and her father.

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Rebecca McCarthy held her three-year-old daughter Clarissa’s favorite toy as the young girl was laid to rest in the same coffin as her father, Martin McCarthy, in West Cork.

McCarthy drowned his daughter and then took his own life earlier in the week in an incident that has shocked the community of Ballydehob.

A funeral mass was held in St Mary's Church in Schull and both the McCarthy family and the family of the distraught mother were bound together in grief.

During the mass, Fr. Alan O’Mahoney addressed the congregation.

"If we knew what was going on in the minds of people, we would not be here today," said the priest, according to the Irish Independent.

"Martin lived all his life in Filemuck and I suppose he only ever really left it to come to Mass, go dancing, play cards and to go to work – and to America once.

"He was farming all his life, it was a big part of his life apart from Clarissa and Rebecca. Clarissa spent all of her short life at Filemuck and in her three-and-a-half years on this earth brought great joy, great happiness not just to Martin and Rebecca's life but the lives of all the people who met her."

Members of the community left wreaths with messages of condolences, and when the mass was over the father and daughter were laid to rest together and the Schull cemetery.
 

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