Young mother killed in crash had only found out she was expecting her first baby

Her funeral mass this morning at Our lady of Lourdes Church Ballyconnell heard the young woman was pregnant and that “two lives were lost on Monday night”.

Ms Stokes and her husband Damien had recently celebrated their wedding on September 18.

Fr Liam Kelly who officiated their marriage ceremony recalled a young woman who was “happy, radiant and full of fun".

“Damien and Amy were besotted with each other; he meant the world to her and she to him. She looked radiant happy and beautiful on that day.

“Shortly before her death they discovered Amy was expecting a baby and they were over the moon with joy looking forward to becoming first time parents. But sadly it wasn’t to be. Two lives were lost on Monday night last and all of us feel that loss today."

Her heartbroken husband Damien sat beside her white and gold coffin alongside her parents Brian and Bernadette Reilly as well as Amy’s siblings Stephanie, Naomi, Olivia, Tom and Anthony.

Throughout the service, the family touched and kissed her coffin and leaned against it sobbing.

The altar was decorated with large white frames wrapped in flowers containing images of Amy on her wedding day.

Fr Kelly quoted from Seamus Heaney’s poem “Midterm break” which was written 70 years ago about the poet’s four-year-old brother who was killed in a car accident when he was away at boarding school.

“His midterm break was getting home from college for his funeral,” said Fr Kelly.

“That took place more than 70 years ago, and last Monday night Winnifred Amy Stokes was killed in another car accident.

“In the 70-year period of those two accidents thousands of other families have had to endure the shock trauma and pain that the Reilly and Stokes family are going through today.

“Whenever someone we love dies, we grieve greatly,” he said. “And a little bit of us dies with them.

“When that death is of a young person who dies accidently and without warning then the grief is greater still."

He added that she was a beautiful singer, and two recordings of the young bride singing were played during the service.

They included “Young Reilly the Fisherman” which saw the congregation rise to their feet.

“Another song she sang was ‘There Were Roses,’ a song written by Tommy Sands about young love being destroyed by trouble in the North simply because one of them was a Protestant and the other a Catholic,” said Fr Kelly.

“‘There Were Roses' was one of her favourite songs and it is fitting that there are lovely red roses depicted on her white coffin here in the church today. Amy had the voice of an angel."

A voice recording of Amy saying “I promised I’d sing it, and I sang it for you Damien” on their wedding day, received an applause.

Following the mass, Amy was laid to rest in Carrick-On-Shannon Cemetery.