'WE will miss him sorely for the rest of our lives' - the words that summed up the feelings of hundreds of mourners gathered in Balbriggan last Friday to remember the life of an extraordinary man who was killed in a tragic road accident.

John Bailey, a teacher at Balbriggan Community College, was pronounced dead at the scene of the horrific accident which claimed his life when his motorbike collided with a car around 8am on Wednesday, December 16th.

The lives John touched in his all too short time on earth was evident as the huge Balbriggan church filled up with mourners on Friday.

John's mother, Ellen, his siblings, Declan, Liam and Marie and his beloved wife Colette led the mourners and it fell to Colette's best friend, Suzie to tell the congregation just what kind of man John Bailey was.

'John Bailey loved life,' she said. 'It is impossible to put into words what John meant to us.' She told of the 'shock horror and disbelief' that had engulfed John's family and friends since the awful news of his death filtered through.

Commitment

She described John as 'a good man - straight, honest and true'. Suzie spoke of John's devotion to his wife and his mother, his commitment to his teaching and the 'hard work, patience, commitment and tenacity' that allowed him to complete the extraordinary task of building his own aircraft in the back garden of his home.

' We will miss him sorely for the rest of our lives,' she said. An engineering teacher at Balbriggan Community College, John's coffin was welcomed into the church by a guard of honour of his students in their school uniform. Fr Gerard Moore delivered the eulogy and talked about John's 'many passions and interests in life' He remembered hearing the emergency services make their way to the accident. Fr Moore said: 'When I heard the emergency services on Wednesday morning it stopped me in my tracks and I said a prayer for the emergency services as they faced an unknown situation.' He acknowledged that what happened to John was ' hard to comprehend' and said the accident was 'totally outside anyone's intention'.

Fr Moore said that John's death 'reminds us all of how fragile life really is'. He described a man who lived life to the full and a life full of 'passion and spirit, humour and friendship'.

- John MANNING